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Copyright, 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 



Photogravures by A. W. Elson & Co., Boston. 



T. Y. Crowell & Co., Bookbinders, Boston. 



DEDICATED TO 

ALFRED TENNYSON. 

IN POETRY — ILLUSTRIOUS AND CONSUMMATB; 
IN FRrENDSHIP — NOBLE AND SINCERE. 



"TN the present selection from my poetry, there is an attempt to escape 
from the embarrassment of appearing to pronounce upon what myself 
may consider the best of it. I adopt another principle; ancl by simply 
stringing together certain pieces on the thread of an imaginary personal- 
ity, I present them in succession, rather as the natural development of a 
particular experience than because I account them the most noteworthy 
portion of my work. Si'?h an attempt was made in the volume of selec- 
tions from the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning; to which — in 
outward uniformity at least — my own would venture to become a 
©ompanion. 

A few years ago, had such an opportunity presented itself, I might 
have been tempted to say a word in reply to the objections xilJ poetry was 
used to encounter. Time has kindly co-operated with my disinclination 
to write the poetry and the criticism besides. The readers I am at last 
privileged to expect, meet me fully half-way; and if, from the fitting 
Btand-point, they must still "censure me in their wisdom," they have 
previously "awakened their senses that they may the better judge." 
Nor do I apprehend any more charges of being wilfully obscure, uncon- 
scientiously careless, or perversely harsh. Having hitherto done my 
utmost in the art to which my life is a devotion, I cannot engage to 
increase the effort; but I conceive that there may be helpful light, as well 
as re-assuring warmth, iu the attention and sympathy I gratefully 
acknowledge. 

London, May 14, 1872. 

iii 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Mt Star , 1 

A Face 1 

My Last Duchess 1 

SoN« KROM " PippA Passes " . , . . 2 

ouistina 3 

Count Gismond . 4 

EURYUICE TO OkPHEUS 5 

The Gi.ovB . 6 

Song 8 

A Serenade at the Villa .... 9 

Youth and Art 9 

The Flight of the Duchess ... 11 

Song puom " Pippa Passes". ... 24 

"How THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD 

News from Ghent to Aix" . . 24 

Song prom "Paracelsus" .... 25 
Through the Metidja to Abd-bl- 

Kadr 26 

Incident op the Frenca Camp . . 26 

The Lost Leader 27 

In a Gondola 27 

A Lovers' Quarrel 30 

Earth's Immortalities 32 

The Last Ride tooethek .... 33 

Mesmerism 34 

By the Fireside 36 

Any Wipe to any IIusbanu. ... 40 

In a Year 43 

Song prom "James Lee" 44 

A Woman's Last Word 44 

Meeting at Night . 45 

Parting at Morning 45 

Women and Roses 45 

Misconceptions 46 

A Pretty Woman 46 

A Light Woman 47 

Love in a Life 48 

Life in a Lote 49 



PASl 

The Laboratory 49 

Gold Hair 50 

The Statue and the Bust .... 53 

Love among the Ruins 57 

Time's Revenges 58 

Waring 59 

Home Thoughts, prom Abroad . . 62 

The Italian in England 62 

The Englishman in Italy .... 64 
Up at a Villa — Dowjn in the City, 67 

PiCTOR Ignotus 68 

Era Lippo Lippi 70 

Andrea del Sarto 76 

The Bishop orders his Tomb at 

Saint Praxed's Church .... 80 

A Toccata of Galuppi's 82 

How it strikes a Contemporary . 84 

Protus 86 

Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha . . 87 

Abt Vogler 89 

Two IN the Campagna 92 

"De Gustibus — " 92 

The Guardian-Angel 93 

Evelyn Hope 94 

Memorabilia 95 

Apparent Failure 95 

Prospice 96 

" Childe Roland to the Dark Tower 

CAME " 97 

A Grammarian's Funeral .... 101 

Cleon 103 

Instans Tyrannus 108 

An Epistle lOii 

Caliban upon Setebos ...... 114 

Saul 119 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 126 

Epilogue 129 

A Wall . . 131 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

ArrAUiTioNs 131 

Natuuai, Ma(ii(! 132 

Maoical Natuuk 132 

Oakdun Famiics, 1 132 

(Iaudkn I<'ancikm, II 133 

In TiiiiKK Dayh 134 

TiiK IjOST Mistuess 13') 

Onh Way of Love 13r) 

UiiDKL TO TUK Lady ok Tiupoli . . 13.') 

NlIMl'llOLKPTOS 136 

Appkauancks 139 

The WoiiHT OP Jt 139 

Too Lath 141 

HiKUKCATION 144 

A LiKKNKSS 144 

May and 1)katii 145 

a foikiiveness 140 

Crnciaja 152 

PorPHYUIA'S lyQVER 157 

FiLippo Bai.dinucci on the Privi- 
lege OF Burial 158 

Poi.ii.oyitY OF TIIK Spanish Cloister, 104 

TllH IIICUKTIC'S TkAUEDY 105 

Iloi.Y-Ciioss Day 107 

Ampiiiiiian 109 

iriT. Martin's Bummer 171 

.Tamks Lkk's Wife 172 

UHtiPECTASILITY 178 



PAGB 

Dis Aliter Visum 179 

Confessions 181 

The Householder 182 

Tkay 183 

Cavalier Tunes, 1 183 

Cavalier Tunes, II 184 

Cavalier Tunes, III 184 

Hefohe 185 



185 



IlERVli RiEL 186 

In a Balcony 188 

Old Pictures in Florence .... 205 
Bishop Bi.ouokam's Apology . . . 210 
Mr. Sludoh, "The Medium" . . . 228 

The Boy and the Angel 256 

A Death in the Desert 257 

Fears and Scruples 268 

Artemis Prologizes 269 

PlIElDIPPIDES 271 

The Patriot 274 

Popularity 274 

PiSOAH-SlGIITS. 1 275 

Pisoaii-Siohts. 2 276 

i'isgah-sigiits. 3 276 

At the "Mermaid" 277 

House 278 

Shop 27» 

A Tale m 



SELECTIONS FEOM EGBERT BROWNING. 



MY STAR. 

All that I know 

Of a certain star 
Is, it can throw 

(Like the angled spar) 
Now a dart of rtnl, 

Now a dart of hhio ; 
Till my fricnids liavc! said 

They would fain see, too, 
My star that dartles tlie red and tlie 

blue ! 
Then it stoi)8 like a l)ird ; like a 
flow(;r, hangs furled : 
Tliey nnist. solace themselves with 
the Saturn above it. 
What matter to me if their star is a 
world? 
Mine has opened its soul to me ; 
therefore I love it. 



A FACE. 



If one could liave that little head of 

hers 
Paint(!d ui)on a background of pale 

gol.l, 
Su(!h as th(! Tuscan's early art prefers ! 
No shade (encroaching on the match- 
less mould 
Of those two lips, which should be 

opening soft 
In the jnire profile ; not as when she 

lauglis. 
For that spoils all : but rather as if 

aloft 
Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its 

staff's 
Burthen of honey-colored buds, to 

kiss 
And capture 'twixt tlie lips apart for 

this. 



Then her lithe neck, three fingers 

might surround. 
How it should waver, on tlie pale gold 

ground, 
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it 

lifts ! 
I know, Correggio loves to mass, in 

rifts 
Of hca\'(en, his angel faces, orb on orb 
lirtniking its outline, burning shades 

absorb : 
But these are only massed there, I 

should think, 
Waiting to see some wonder momently 
Grow out, stand full, fade slow against 

the sky 
(That's th(i jtale ground you'd see this 

swecit face by), 
All heaven, meanwhile, condensed 

into on(! eye 
Which fears to lose the wonder, 

should it wink. 



MY LAST DUCHESS. 

FERRARA. 

That's my last Duchess painted on 

the wall, 
Looking as if she were alive. I call 
That piece a wonder, now : Frk Pan 

dolf's hands 
Worked busily a day, and there she 

stands. 
Will't phiase you sit and look at her ? 

I said 
" Fra Pandolf " by design : for never 

r(!ad 
Strange;rs lik(! you that pictured coun- 

tciiiiiice, 
The dciitli and i)assion of its earnest 

glance. 



2 



SONG FROM ''PIPPA PASSES^ 



But to myself they turned (since none 

puts by 
The curtain I have drawn for you, 

but I), 
And seemed as they would ask me, if 

they durst. 
How such a glance came there ; so, 

not the Hrst 
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 

'twas not 
Her husband's presence only, called 

that spot 
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek : per- 
haps 
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, " Her 

mantle laps 
Over my lady's wrist too much," or 

" Paint 
Must never hope to reproduce the faint 
Half-iinsh that dies along her throat ;" 

such stuff 
"Was courtesy, she thought, and cause 

enough 
For calling up that spot of joy. She 

had 
A heart — how vshall I say? — too 

soon made glad, 
Too easily impressed : she liked what- 

e'er 
She looked on, and her looks went 

everywhere. 
Sir, 'twas all one ! My favor at her 

breast. 
The dropping of the daylight in the 

West, 
The bough of cherries some officious 

fool 
Broke in the orchard for her, the 

white mule 
She rode with round the terrace, — all 

and each 
Would draw from her alike the ap- 
proving speech. 
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, 

— good ! but thanked 
Somehow — I know not how — as if 

slie ranked 
My gift of a nine-hundred-ycars-old 

uame 
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to 

blame 
This sort of trifling? Even had you 

skill 
In speech- (which I have not) — to 

make your will 
Quite clear to such an one, and say, 

" Just this 
Or that in you disgusts me ; here you 

miss. 



Or there exceed the mark" — and 

if she let 
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly 

set 
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made 

excuse, 
— E'en then would be some stooping ; 

and I choose 
Never to stoop. O sir I she smiled, 

no doubt, 
Whene'er I passed her ; but who 

passed without 
Much the same smile ? This grew ; I 

gave commands ; 
Then all smiles stopped together. 

There she stands 
As if alive. Will't please you rise? 

We'll meet 
The company below, then. I repeat. 
The Count your master's known 

munificence 
Is ample warrant that no just pi"e- 

tence 
Of mine for dowry will be disal- 
lowed ; 
Though his fair daughter's self, as I 

avowed 
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll 

go 
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, 

though, 
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity. 
Which Clans of Innsbruck cast in 

bronze for me I 



SONG FROM « PIPPA PASSES." 



Give her but a least excuse to love 
mel 
When — where — 
How — can this arm establish her 
above me. 
If fortune fixed her as my lady 
there. 
There already, to eternally reprove 
me? 
(" Hist ! " said Kate the queen; 
But " Oh," cried the maiden, binding 
her tresses, 
" 'Tis only a page that carols un- 
seen. 
Crumbling your hounds their 
messes! ") 



cm ST IN A. 



Is she wronged? — To the rescue of 
her honor, 
My heart! 
Is she poor? — What costs it to be- 
come a donor ? 
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to 
part. 
But that fortune should have thrust 
all this upon her ! 
(" Nay, list ! " bade Kate the queen; 
And still cried the maiden, binding 
her tresses, 
" 'Tis only a page that carols un- 
seen, 
Fitting your hawks their jesses! ") 



CRISTINA. 



She should never have looked at me 

if she meant I should not love 

her! 
There are plenty . . . men, you call 

such, I suppose . . . she may 

discover 
All her soul to, if she pleases, and yet 

leave much as she found them: 
But I'm not so; and she knew it when 

she fixed me, glancing round 

them. 

II. 
What ? To fix me thus meant noth- 
ing? But I can't tell (there's 

my weakness) 
What her look said ! — no rile cant, 

sure, about " need to strew the 

bleakness 
Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed, 

that the sea feels " — no " strange 

yearning 
That such souls have, most to lavish 

where there's chance of least 

returning." 



Oh 1 we're sunk enough here, God 
knows ! but not quite so suidc 
that moments. 

Sure though seldom, are denied us, 
when the spirit's true endow- 
ments 

Stand out plainly from its false ones, 
and apprise it if pursuing 

Or the right way or the wrong way, 
to its triumph ur undoing. 



There are flashes struck from mid- 
nights, tliere are fire-flames 
noondays kindle. 

Whereby piled-iqi honors i^erish, 
whereby swollen ambitions 
dwindle; 

While just this or that poor imimlse, 
wiiieh for once had plav luisti- 
fled, 

Seems the sole work of a lifetimt 
that away the rest have trifled. 



Doubt you if, in some such moment, 

as she fixed me, she felt clearly. 
Ages past the soul existed, here an 

age 'tis resting merely. 
And hence fleets again for ages; while 

the true end, sole and single. 
It stops here for is, this love way, 

with some other soul to mingle ? 



Else it loses what it lived for, and 

eternally unist lose it; 
Better ends may be in prospect, 

deeper blisses (if you choose it), 
But this life's end and this love-bliss 

have been lost here. Doubt you 

whether 
This she felt as, looking at me, mine 

and her souls rushed together ? 



Oh, observe! Of course, next moment, 
the world's honors, in derision, 

Trampled out the light forever. 
Never fear but there's provision 

Of the Devil's to quench knt)\vledge, 
lest we walk the earth in i-aji- 
ture ! 

— Making those who catch God's se- 
cret, jnst so much more prize 
their capture! 



Such am I: the secret's mine now! 

She has lost me, I have gained 

her; 
Her soul's mine: and thus, grown 

jierfect, I shall pass my life's 

remainder. 
Life will jnst hold out the proving both 

our powers, alone and blended; 
And then, come next life quickly! 

This world's use will have 

been ended. 



COUNT GISMOND. 



COUNT GISMOND. 

AIX IN PROVENCE. 



Christ God who savest man, save 

most. 
Of men ("ount Gismond who saved 

nu>! 
Count (ianthier, when he chose his 

])()St, 

Chosd time and place and company 
To suit it: when lie struck at len<;tli 
My honor, 'twas with all his strengtli. 



And doubtlessly, ere he could draw 
All i)oints to one, he must have 

sclH>med! 
That niisi'ial>li> morniii}! saw 

Few half so lKi|i|iy as I sciMued, 
While l)('iii.i:; dressed in (lueeu's array 
To give our tournej- prize away. 

III. 
I thought they loved me, did me grace 
To please themselves: 'twas all 
their deed. 
God makes, or fair or foul, our face: 
If showiuLj min(> so caused to bleed 
My cousins' hearts, they should have 

ilropped 
A wonl, and straight the play had 
stopped. 

IV. 

They, too, so beauteous! Each a 
queen 

By virtue of her brow and breast; 
Not needing to be crowned, I mean, 

As I do. E'en when I was dressed. 
Had either of them spoke, instead 
Of glancnng siileways with still head! 

V. 

But no: they let me laugh, and sing 
My birthday song quite through, 
adjust 

The last rose in my garland, fling 
A last look on the mirror, trust 

My arms to eat-h an arm of theirs. 

And so descend the castle-stairs — 



And eomt> out on the morning trooj^ 
Of merry friends who kissed my 
cheek, 



And called me queen, and made me 

stoop 
Under tlu^ canopy — (a streak 
That pierced it, of the outside sun, 
Powdered with gold its gloom's soft 

dun) — 



And they could let me take my state 
And foolish throne amid applause 

Of all come there to celebrate 
My queen's-day — Oh, I tliink the 
cause 

Of nuich was, they forgot no crowd 

Makes up for parents in their shroud! 



However that be, all eyes were bent 

I' poll me, when my cousins cast 
Theirs down; 'twas time I should 
present 
The viitor's crown, but . . . there, 
'twill last 
No long time . . . the old mist again 
Blinds me as then it did. How vain! 



See! Gismond's at the gate, in talk 

With his two boys: I can proceed. 
Well, at that moment, who should 
stalk 
Forth boldly — to my face, indeed — 
But Ganthier? and he thundered 

" Stay! " 
And all staid. " Bring no crowns, I 
say! 



" Bring torches! Wind the penance- 
sheet 

About her! Let her shun the chaste, 
Or lay herself before the'r feet! 

Shall slu!, whose body 1 embraced 
A night long, <iueeii it in the day ? 
For honor's sake no crowns, I say! " 



XI. 

I ? What I answered ? As I live, 

I never fancied siu^h a thing 
As answer possible to give. 
What says the body when they 
spring 
Some monstrous torture-engine's 

whole 
Strength on it? No more says the 
soul. 



EURYDWE TO ORPHEUS. 



Till out strode Gismond: then I knew 
That I was saved. I nevei* met 

His face before; but, at first view, 
I felt quite sure that God had set 

Himself to Satan: who would spend 

A minute's mistrust on the end ? 



He strotle to Gauthier, in his throat 
Gave him the lie, then struck his 
month 

"With one back-handed blow that 
wrote 
In blood men's verdict then. North, 
South, 

East, West, I looked. The lie was 
dead 

And damned, and truth stood up in- 
stead. 

XIV. 

This glads me most, that I enjoyed 
The heart o' the joy, with my con- 
tent 

In watching Gismond unalloyed 
By any doubt of the event; 

God took that on him — I was bid 

Watch Gismond for my part: I did. 

XV. 

Did I not watch him while he let 
His armorer just brace his greaves. 

Rivet his hauberk, on the fret 
The while! His foot . . . my mem- 
ory leaves 

No least stamp ont, nor how anon 

He pulled his ringing gauntlets on. 



And e'en before the trumpet's sound 
Was finished, prone lay the false 
knight, 
Prone as his lie, upon the ground: 
Gismond tlew at him, used no 
sleight 
O' the sword, but open-breasted 

drove. 
Cleaving till out the truth he clove. 



Which done, he dragged him to my 
feet, 
And said, "Here die, but end thy 
breath 
In full confession, lest thou fleet 
From my first to God's second 
death ! 



Say, hast thou lied ? " And, " I have 

lied 
To God and her," he said, and died. 

XVIII. 

Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked 
— What safe my heart holds, though 
no word 

Could I repeat now, if I tasked 
My powers forever, to a third, 

Dear even as you are. Pass the rest 

Until I sank upon his breast. 



Over my head his arm he flung 
Against the world; and scarce I 
felt 
His sword (that dripped by me and 
swung) 
A little shifted in its belt. 
For he began to say the while 
How South our home lay many a 
mile. 



So 'mid the shouting nuiltitude 

We two walked forth to never more 
Return. My cousins have pursued 

Their life, untroubled as before 
I vexed them. Gauthier 's dwelling- 

]ilace 
God lighten! May his soul find 
grace I 



Our elder boy has got the clear 
Great brow; though when his broth- 
er's black 
Full eye shows scorn, it . . . Gismond 
here ? 
And have you brought my tercel 
back ? 
I was just telling Adela 
How many birds it struck since May. 



EURYDTCE TO ORPHEUS. 

A PICTURE BY FREDERICK LEIGH- 
TON, R.A. 

But give them me, the mouth, the 

eyes, the brow ! 
Let them once more absorb me I One 

look now 



THE GLOVE. 



Will lap me round forever, not to 

pass 
Out of its light, tliougli darkness lie 

bejond: 
Hold me but safe again within the 

bond 
Of one immortal look ! All woe 

that was, 
Foi'gotten, and all terror that may 

be, 
Defied, — no past is mine, no future: 

look at me ! 



THE GLOVE. 

(PETER RONSARD loquitur.) 

"Heioho," yawned one day King 

Francis, 
" Distance all value enhances ! 
When a man's busy, why, leisure 
Strikes him as wonderful pleasure: 
'Faith, and at leisure once is he? 
Straightway he wants to be busy. 
Here we've got peace; and aghast 

I'm 
Caught thinking war the true pas- 
time. 
Is there a reason in metre '? 
Give us your speech, master Peter ! " 
I who, if mortal dar(^ say so. 
Ne'er am at loss with my Naso, 
" Sire," I replied, " jovs prove cloiul- 

lets: 
Men are the merest Ixions " — 
Here the King whistled aloud, " Let's 
. . . lleigho ... go look at our 

lions ! " 
Such are the sorrowful chances 
If you talk fine to King Francis. 

And so, to the court-yard proceeding, 
Our com]iany, Francis was leading. 
Increased by new followers tenfold 
Before he arrived at the penfold ; 
Lords, ladies, like clouds which be- 
dizen 
At sunset the western horizon. 
And Sir de Lorge pressed 'lilid the 

foremost 
With the dame he professed to adore 

most — 
Oh, what a face ! One by fits eyed 
Her, and the horrible pitside; 



For the penfold surrounded a hollow 

Which led where the eye scarce dared 
follow, 

And shelved to the chamber secluded 

Where Bluebeard, the great lion, 
brooded. 

Tlie king hailed his keeper, an Arab 

As glossy and black as a scarab. 

And bade him make sport, and at 
once stir 

Up and out of his den the old mou 
ster. 

They opened a hole in the wire= 
work 

Across it, and dropped there a fire- 
work. 

And fied: one's heart's beating re- 
doubled; 

A pause, while the pit's mouth was 
troubled, 

The blackness and silence so utter. 

By the firework's slow sparkling and 
sputter; 

Then earth in a sudden contortion 

Gave out to our gaze her abortion. 

Such a brute ! Were I friend Clem- 
ent Marot 

(Whose experience of nature's but 
narrow. 

And whose faculties move in no small 
mist 

When he versifies David the Psalm- 
ist) 

I shonkl study that brute to describe 
you 

Ilhnn Jttda Leonem de Tribu. 

One's whole blood grew curdling and 
creepj' 

To see the black mane, vast and 
heapy. 

The tail in the air stiff and straining. 

The wide eyes, nor waxing nor wan- 
ing. 

As over the barrier which bounded 

His platform, and us who surroundei'i 

The I'urrier, they reached and they 
rested 

On space that might stand him in best 
steail ; 

For who knew, he thought, what the 
amazement. 

The eruption of clatter and blaze 
meant. 

And if, in this minute of wonder. 

No outlet, 'mid lightning and thun« 
der. 

Lay broad, and, his shackles all shiv- 
ered. 

The lion at last was delivered ? 



THE GLOVE. 



Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead! 
And you saw by the tiasli on his fore- 
head, 
By the hope in tliose eyes wide and 

steady, 
lie was leagues in the desert already, 
Driving the ttoeks up the mountain, 
Or catlike couched hard by the foun- 
tain 
To waylay the date-gathering negress: 
So guarded lie entrance or egress. 
"How he stands! " quoth the king: 
" we may well swear 
(No novice, we've won our spurs else- 
where. 
And so can afford the confession), 
"We exercise wholesome discretion 
In keeping aloof from his threshold; 
Once hold you, those jaws want no 

fresh hold, 
Their first would too pleasantly pur- 
loin 
The visitor's brisket or sirloin: 
But who's he would prove so fool- 
hardy ? 
Not the best man of Marignan, par- 
die! " 

The sentence no sooner was uttered, 
Than over the rails a glove fluttered, 
Fell close to the lion, and rested: 
The dame 'twas, who flung it and 

jested 
"With life so, De Lorge had bgen 

wooing 
For months past; he sat there pursu- 
ing 
His suit, weighing out with noncha- 
lance 
Fine speeches like gold from a bal- 
ance, 

Sound the trumpet, no true knight's 
a tarrier! 

De Lorge made one leap at the bar- 
rier, 

"Walked straight to the glove, — while 
the lion 

Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching 
eye on 

The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's 
sapphire, 

And the musky oiled skin of the Kaf- 
fir, ~ 

Picked it up, and as calmly retreated, 

Leaped back where the lady was 
seated. 

And full in the face of its owner 

Flung the glove. 



" Your heart's queen, 

you dethrone her ? 
So should I!" — cried the King — 

" 'twas mere vanity, 
Not love, set that task to humanity! " 
Lords and ladies alike turned with 

loathing 
From such a proved wolf in sheep's 

clothing. 

Not so, I; for I caught an expression 
In her brow's undisturbed self-posses- 
sion 
Amid the Court's scoffing and merri- 
ment, — 
As if from no pleasing experiment 
She rose, yet of pain not much heed- 
ful 
So long as the process was needful,— 
As if she had tried, in a crucible. 
To what " speeches like gold " were 

reducible. 
And, finding the finest prove copper. 
Felt smoke in her face was but proper; 
To know what she had not to trust 

to, 
"Was worth all the ashes and dust 

too. 
She went out 'mid hooting and laugh- 
ter; 
Clement Marot staid; I followed 

after, 
And asked, as a grace, what it all 

meant ? 
If she wished not the rash deed's re- 

cahnent? 
"For I" —so I spoke — "am a poet: 
Human nature, — behooves that I 
know it! " 

She told me, " Too long had I heard 
Of the deed proved alone by the 

word: 
For my love — what De Lorge would 

not dare! 
"With mv scorn — what De Lorge could 



compare 



And the endless descriptions of death 
He would brave when my lip formed 

a breath, 
I must reckon as braved, or, of course, 
Doubt his word — and moreover, per- 

force. 
For such gifts as no lady could spurn, 
Must offer my love in return. 
WIhmi I looked on your lion, it brought 
All the dangers at once to my thought, 
Fiicountei'ed by all sorts of men, 
Before he was lodged in his den, — 



SONG. 



From the jioor slave whose chib or 
bare hands 

Pug the trap, set the snare ou the 
samls, 

With no King and no Court to ap- 
plaud, 

By no slianie, should he shrink, over- 
awed, 

Yet to capture the creature made 
shift. 

That his rude boys might laugh at 
the gift, 

— To the page who last leaped o'er 

the fence 
Of the pit, on no greater pretence 
Than to get back the bonnet he 

dropped, 
Lest his pay for a week should be 

stopped. 
So, wiser I judged it to make 
One trial what ' death for my sake ' 
Really mount, while the power was 

yet mine. 
Than to wait until time should de- 
fine 
Such a i^hrase not so simply as I, 
Who took it to mean just ' to die.' 
The blow a glove gives is but weak: 
Does the mark yet discolor my cheek ? 
But, when the heart suffers a blow. 
Will the pain pass so soon, do you 
know ? " 

I looked, as away she was sweeping, 
And saw a youth eagerly keeping 
As close as he dared to the doorway. 
No doubt that a noble should more 

weigh 
His life than befits a plebeian; 
And yet, had our brute been Ne- 

mean — 
(I judge by a certain calm fervor 
The youth stepped with, forward to 

serve her) 

— He d ^ave scarce thought you did 

him the worst turn 
If you wliispered, " Friend, what you'd 

get, first earn! " 
And when, shortly after, she carried 
Her shame from the Court, and they 

married. 
To that marriage some happiness, 

maugre 
Tlie voice of the Court, I dared augur. 

For De Lorge, he made women with 

men vie. 
Those in wonder and praise, these in 

envy: 



And, in short, stood so plain a head 

taller 
That he wooed and won . . . how do 

you call her '.' 
The beauty, tliat rose in the sequel 
To the King's love, who loved her a 

week well. 
And 'twas noticed he never would 

honor 
De Lorge (who looked daggers upom 

her) 
With the easy commission of stretch- 
ing 
His legs in the service, and fetching 
His wife, from her chaml)er, those 

straying 
Sad gloves she was always mislaying, 
While the King took the closet to chat 

in, — 
But of course this adventure came 

pat in. 
And never the King told the story. 
How bringing a glove brought such 

glory. 
But the wife smiled — "His nerves 

are grown firmer : 
Mine he brings now and utters no 

murmur." 

Venienti occitrrite morho ! 

With which moral I drop my theorbo. 



SONG. 



I. 
Nay but yon, who do not love her, 

Is she nor pure gold, my mistress? 
Holds earth aught — speak truth — 
above her ? 
Aught like this tress, see, and this 
ti'ess. 
And this last fairest tress of all. 
So fair, see, ere I let it fall f 



Because, you spend your lives in 
praising ; 
To praise, you search the wide world 
over ; 
Then why not witness, calmly gazing. 
If earti) holds aught — sjieak truth 
— above her ? 
Above this tress, and this, I touch 
But caunot praise, I love so much \ 



YOUTH AND ART. 



A SERENADE AT THE 
VILLA. 



That was I, you heard last night, 
"When there rose no moon at all, 

Nor, to pierce the strained and tight 
Tent of heaven, a planet small : 

Life was dead, and so was light. 



Not a twinkle from the fly. 
Not a glimmer from the worm. 

When the crickets stojiped tlieir cry, 
When tlie owls forbore a term, 

You heard music : that was I. 



Earth turned in her sleep with pain. 
Sultrily suspired for proof : 

In at heaven and out again, 
Lightning ! — where it broke the 
roof, 

Bloodlike, some few drops of rain. 



What they could my words expressed, 
O my love, my all, my one ! 

Singing helped the verses Ijest ; 
And, when singing's best was done, 

To my lute I left the rest. 



So wore night ; the east was gray. 
White the broad-faced hemlock- 
flowers ; 

There would be another day ; 
Ere its first of heavy hours 

Found me, I had passed away. 



What became of all the hopes, 
Words and song and lute as well ? 

Say, this struck you— "When life 
gropes 
Feebly for the path where fell 

Light last on the evening slopes. 



" One friend in that path shall be. 
To secure my step from wrong ; 

One to count night day for me, 
Patient through the watches long, 

Serving most with none to see." 



viir. 
Never say — as something bodes — 

" So, the worst has yet a worse I 
When life halts 'jieatl'i double loads. 

Better the task-master's curse 
Than such music on the roads ! 



" When no moon succeeds the sun, 
Nor can pierce the midnight's tent, 

Any star, the smallest one. 
While some drops, where lightning 
rent, 

Show the final storm begun — 



" When the fire-fly hides its spot, 
When th(! garden-voices fail 

In the darkness thick and hot, — 
Sliall another voice avail. 

That shape be where these are not ? 



" Has some plague a longer lease, 
Proffering its help uncouth? 

Can't one even die in peace ? 
As one shuts one's eyes on youth, 

Is that face the last one sees ? " 



Oh, how dark your villa was, 
Windows fast and obdurate ! 

How the garden grudged me grass 
Where I stood — the iron gate 

Ground its teeth to let me pass ! 



YOUTH AND ART. 



It once might have been, once only • 
We lodged in a street together. 

You, a sparrow on the housetop 
lonely, 
I, a lone she-bird of his feather. 



Your trade was with sticks and clay. 
You thumbed, thrust, patted, and 
polished. 
Then laughed, " They will see, some 
day. 
Smith made, and Gibson demol- 
ished." 



10 



YOUTH AND ART. 



My business was song, song, song : 
I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and 
twittered, 
" Kate Brown's on the boards ere 
long, 
And Grisi's existence embittered ! 



1 earned no more by a warble 
Than you by a sketch in plaster : 

You wanted a piece of marble, 
I needed a music-master. 



"We studied hard in our styles. 
Chipped each at a crust like Hin- 
doos, 
For air. looked out on the tiles, 
For fun, watched each other's win- 
dows. 



You lounged, like a boy of the South, 
Cap and blouse — nay, a bit of beard 
too ; 

Or you got it, rubbing your mouth 
With lingers the clay adhered to. 



vn. 

And I — soon managed to find 
Weak points in the flower-fence fa- 
cing, 

Was forced to put up a blind 
And be safe in my corset-lacing. 



viir. 
No harm ! It was not my fault 
If you never turned your eye's tail 
up 
As I shook upon E in all. , 
Or ran the chromatic scale up ; 



For spring bade the sparrows pair. 
And the boys and girls ga\'e guesses, 

And stalls in our street looked rare 
With bulrush and watercresses. 



Why did not you pinch a (lower 
In a pellet of clay and fling 't ? 



Why did not I put a power 
Of thanks in a look, or sing it ? 



I did look, sharp as a lynx 
(And yet the memory rankles). 

When models arrived, some minx 
Tripped up stairs, she and her 
ankles. 



But I think I gave you as good ! 

"That foreign fellow, — who cac 
know 
How she pays, in a playful mood, 

For his tuning her that piano ? " 



XIII. 

Could you say so, and never say, 
" Suppose we join hands and fof 
tunes, 
And I fetch her from over the way, 
Her, piano, and long tunes and short 
tunes?" 



No, no ; you would not be rash. 
Nor I rasher and something over : 

You've to settle yet Gibson's hash, 
And Grisi yet lives in clover. 



But 



XV. 

the 



Prince at the 



you meet 

Board, 

I'm queen myself at huls-par4, 
I've married a rich old lord, 
And you're dubbed knight and a» 

R.A. 



Each life's unfulfilled, you see; 

It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: 
We have not sighed deep, laughed 
free. 
Starved, feasted, despaired, — been 
happy. 

XVII. 

And nobody calls you a dunce, 
And people suppose me clever: 

This could but have happened once. 
And we missed it, lost it forever. 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



11 



THE 



FLIGHT OF 
DUCHESS. 



THE 



You're my friend: 

I was the man the Duke spoke to; 

I helped the Duchess to cast off his 

yoke, too: 
So, here's the tale from beginning to 

end. 
My friend 1 



Ours is a great wild country: 

If you climb to our castle's top, 

I don't see where your eye can stop; 

For when you've passed the corn-field 

country, 
Where vineyards leave off, flocks are 

packed. 
And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract, 
And cattle-tract to open-chase, 
And open-chase to the very base 
O' the mountain where, at a funeral 

pace. 
Round about, solemn and slow, 
One by one, row after row. 
Up and up the pine-trees go, 
So, like black priests up, and so 
Down the other side again 
To another greater, wilder country. 
That's one vast red drear burnt-up 

plain. 
Branched through and through with 

many a vein 
Whence iron's dug, and copper's 

dealt; 
Look right, look left, look straight 

before, — 
Beneath they mine, above they smelt, 
Copper-ore and iron-ore. 
And forge and furnace mould and 

melt. 
And so on, more a.id ever more. 
Till at the last, for a bounding belt. 
Comes the salt sand hoar of the great 

seasho-e, 
— And the whole is our Duke's coun- 
try. 



I v/as born the day this present Duke 

was — 
(And O, says the song, ere I was old !) 
In the castle where the other Duke 

was — 
(When I was happy and young, not 

old!) 



I in the kennel, he in the bower: 
We are of like age to an hour. 
My father was huntsman in that day: 
Who has not heard my father say. 
That, when a boar was brought to 

bay. 
Three times, four times out of five, 
With his huntspear he'd contrive 
To get th(; killii)g-i)lace transfixed. 
And pin him true, both eyes betwixt? 
And that's why the old Duke would 

rather 
He lost a salt-pit than my father. 
And loved to have him ever in call; 
That's why my father stood in the 

hall 
When the old Duke brought his in- 
fant out 
To show the peoiile, and while they 

passed 
The wondrous bantling round about, 
Was first to start at the outside blast 
As the Kaiser's courier blew his horn, 
Just a month after the babe was born. 
"And," quoth the Kaiser's courier, 

" since 
The Duke has got an heir, our Prince 
Needs the Duke's self at his side: " 
The Duke looked down and seemed 

to wince. 
But he thought of wars o'er the world 

wide. 
Castles a-fire, men on their march. 
The toppling tower, the crashing arch ; 
And up he looked, and a while he 

eyed 
The row of crests and shields and 

banners 
Of all achievements after all manners, 
And "Ay," said the Duke with a 

surly pride. 
The more was his comfort when he 

died 
At next year's end, in a velvet suit, 
With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot 
In a silken shoe for a leather boot, 
Petticoated like a herald. 
In a chamber next to an ante-room, 
Where he breathed the breath of page 

and groom, 
What he called stink, and they, per- 
fume: 
— They should have set him on red 

Berold 
Mad with ]iride, like fire to manage ! 
They should have got his cheek fresh 

tannage 
Such a day as to-day in the merry 

sunshine ! 



12 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



Had thej- stuck on his fist a rough- 

ioox merlin ! 
(Hark, the wind's on the heath at its 

game ! 
Oh for a noble falcon-lanner 
To tlap each broad wing like a ban- 
ner, 
And turn in the wind, and dance like 

Hamo !) 
Had they broached a cask of white 

beer from Berlin ! 
— Or if you incline to prescribe mere 

wine, 
Put to his lips when they saw him 

pine, 
A cup of our own ^loldavia fine, 
Cotnar for instance, greeu as May 

sorrel 
And ropy with sweet, — we shall not 

quarrel. 

IV. 

So, at home, the sick tall yellow 

Duchess 
Was left with the infant in her 

clutches, 
She being the daughter of God knows 

who: 
And now was the time to revisit her 

tribe. 
Abroad and afar they went, the two, 
And lot our people rail and gibe 
At the empty hall and extinguished 

fire, 
As loud as we liked, but ever in vain, 
Till after long years we had our de- 
sire, 
And back came the Duke and his 

mother again. 



And he came back the pertest little 

ape 
riiat ever affronted human shape; 
Full of his travel, struck at himself. 
Vou'd say, he despised our bluff old 

ways ? 
— Not he! For in Paris thev told the 

elf 
That our rough North land was the 

Land of Lays. 
The one good thing left in. evil days; 
Since the .Mid- Age was the Heroic 

Time, 
And only in wild nooks like ours 
Could you taste of it yet as in its 

prime. 
And see true castles with proper 

towers. 



Young-hearted women, old-miuded 

men. 
And manners now as manners were 

then. 
So, all that the old Dukes had been, 

without knowing it, 
This Duke would fain know he was, 

wirliout being it; 
'Twas not for the joy's self, but the 

joy of bis showing it. 
Nor for the pride's self, but the pride 

of our seeing it, 
He revived all usages thoroughly 

W'orn-out, 
The souls of them fumed-forth, the 

hearts of them torn-out: 
And chief in the chase his neck he 

perilled, 
On a lathy horse, all legs and length, 
With blood for bone, all speed, no 

strength ; 

— They should have set him on red 

Berold 
With the red eye slow consuming in 

fire. 
And the thin stiff ear like an abbey 

spire! 

VI. 

Well, such as he was, he must marry, 

we heard; 
And out of a convent, at the word. 
Came the lady, in time of spring. 

— Oh, old thoughts thej' cling, they 

cling! 
That day, I know, with a dozen 

oaths 
I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes 
Fit for the chase of urox or buffle 
In winter-time when you need to 

muttte. 
But the Duke had a mind we should 

cut a figure. 
And so we saw the lady arrive: 
My friend, I have seeii a white crane 

bigger! 
She was the smallest lady alive, 
^fade in a piece of luiture's madness. 
Too small, almost, for the life and 

gladness 
That over-filled her, as some hive 
Out of the bears' reach on the higt 

trees 
Is crowded with its safe merry bees: 
In truth, she was not hard to please! 
Up she looked, down she looked, 

round at the mead, 
Straight at the castle, that's best 'n- 
" dead 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCITER^. 



13 



To look at from outside the walls: 
As for us, styled the " serfs and 

thralls," 
She as iiuu'li thanked me as if she had 

said it, 
(With her eyes, do you understand ?) 
Because I ijatted her horse while I 

led it; 
.vnd Max, who rode on her other 

hand, 
Said, no bird flew past but she in- 
quired 
What its true name was, nor ever 

seemed tired — 
If that was an eagle she saw hover. 
And the green and gray bird on the 

field was the plovc^r, 
When suddenly appeared the Duke: 
And as down she sprung, the small 

foot pointed 
On to my hand, — as with a rebuke, 
And as if his baekbone were not 

jointeil. 
The Duke stepped rather aside than 

forward. 
And welcomed her with his grandest 

smile ; 
And, mind you, his mother all the 

while 
Chilled in the rear, like a wind to 

nor 'ward ; 
And up, like a weary yawn, with its 

pulleys 
Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcul- 
lis ; 
And, like a glad sky the north-wind 

sullies, 
The lady's face stopped its play, 
As if her first hair had grown gray; 
Yox such things must begin some one 

day. 



In a day or two she was well again ; 
As who should say, " You labor in 

vain ! 
" This is all a jest against God, who 

meant 
I should ever be, as I am, content 
And glad in his sight; therefore, glad 

I will be." 
So, smiling as at first went she. 



She was active, stirring, all fire — 
(;<)uld not rest, could not tire — 
To a stone she might have given life ! 
CI myself loved once, in my day) 



— For a shepherd's, miner's, hunts- 
man's wife, 

(I had a wife, I know what I say) 

Nev(fr in all the world such an one! 

And here was plenty to be done. 

And she that could do it, great or 
small. 

She was to do nothing at all. 

There was already this man in hi 
post. 

This in his station, and that in hi 
office, 

And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, 
at most. 

To meet his eye, with the other tro- 
phies, 

Now outside the hall, now in it, 

To sit thus, stand thus, see and be 
seen, 

At the proper place in the proper 
minute. 

And die away the life between. 

And it was amusing enough, each in- 
fraction 

Of rule — (but for after-sadness that 
came) 

To hear the consummate self-satisfac- 
tion 

With which the young Duke and the 
old dame 

Would let her advise, and criticise, 

And, being a fool, instruct the 
wise. 

And, childlike, parcel out praise or 
blame : 

They bore it all in complacent guise, 

As though an artificer, after contriv- 
ing 

A wheel-work image as if it were 
living. 

Should find with delight it could mo- 
tion to strikf! bini ! 

So found the Duke, and his mother 
like liim : 

The lady hardly got a rebuff — 

That had not been contemptuous 
enough, 

With his cursed smirk, as he nodded 
applause. 

And kept off the old mother-cat's 
claws. 



So, the little lady grew silent and 
thin, 
Paling and ever paling, 
As the way is with a hid chagrin ; 
And tlie Duke perceived that she 
was ailing. 



\i 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



And said in his heart, " 'Tis done to 

spito ine, 
"But 1 shall find in my power to 

riglit mo ! " 
Don't swear, friend ! The old one, 

luanv a year. 
Is in hell'; and tlie Duke's self . . . 

you shall hear. 



Well, early in autumn, at first winter- 
warning, 
When the stag had to break with his 

foot, of a morning, 
A drinking-hole out of the fresh ten- 
der ice. 
That covered the pond till the sun, in 

a trice. 
Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold. 
And another and another, and faster 

and faster. 
Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide 

water rolled. 
Then it so chanced that the Duke our 

master 
Asked himself what were the pleas- 
ures in season. 
And found, since the calendar bade 

him be hearty. 
He should do the JSIiddle Age uo trea- 
son 
In resolving on a hunting-party. 
Always provided, old books showed 

"the wav of it ! 
What meant old poets by their stric- 
tures ? 
And when old poets had said their 

sav of it. 
How taught old painters in their pic- 
tures ? 
We must revert to the proper chan- 
nels, 
"Workings in tapestry, paintings on 

panels, 
Aiul gather up woodcraft's authentic 

traditions : 
Here was food for our various ambi- 
tions, 
As on each case, exactly stated — 
To encourage your dog, now, the prop- 

erest "chirrup. 
Or best prayer to St. Hubert on 

mounting vour stirrup — 
We of the household took thought 

and debated. 
Blessed was he whose back ached 

with the jerkin 
His sire was wont to do forest-work in ; 



Blesseder he who nobly sunk " ohs ' 
And "ahs" while he tugged on his 

grandsire's trunk-hose ; 
What signified hats if they had no 

rims on. 
Each slouching before and behind like 

the scallop. 
And able to serve at sea for a shallop. 
Loaded with lacquer and looped with 

crimson ? 
So that the deer now, to make a short 

rhvine on't. 
What with our Venerere, Prickers, 

and Verderers. 
Might hope for real hunters at length 

and not murderers. 
And oh the Duke's tailor, he had a 

hot time on't ! 



Now you must know that when the 

first dizziness 
Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack- 

l)oots subsided. 
The Duke put this question, " The 

Duke's part provided. 
Had not the Duchess some share in 

the business? " 
For out of the mouth of two or three 

witillGSSGS 

Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses; 

And, after much laying of heads to- 
gether. 

Somebody's cap got a notable feather 

By the announcement with proper 
unction 

That he had discovered the lady's 
function ; 

Since ancient authors gave this tenet, 

" When horns wind a mort and the 
deer is at siege. 

Let the dame of the castle inick forth 
on her jennet. 

And with water to wash the hands of 
her liege 

In a clean ewer with a fair towelling, 

Let her preside at the disembowel- 
ling." 

Now, my friend, if you had so little 
religion 

As to catch a hawk, some falcon- 
lanner. 

And thrust her broad wings like a 
banner 

Into a coop for a vulgar pigeon ; 

And if dav by day and week by week 

You cut her claws, and sealed her 
eyes, 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



15 



And c'^^ipped her wings, and tied her 
lie?,k, 

Would it cause you any great sur- 
prisa 

/f, wlien you decided to give her an 
airii?;;, 

\'ou found she needed a little pre- 
paring? 

— I say, siitmld you be such a cur- 
mudgeon, 

If slie clung to the perch, as to tak(; it 
in dudgeon ? 

Yet when tlie Duke to his lady signi- 
fied, 

Just a day before, as he judged most 
dignified. 

In w^iat a pleasare she was to partici- 
pate, — 

And, instead of leaping wide in 
flashes. 

Her eyes just lifted their long 
lashes. 

As if pressed by fat'gue even he could 
not dissipate. 

And duly acknowledged the Duke's 
forethought, 

But spoke of licr In^s-lth, if her health 
were worth aught, 

Of the weight by day and the watch 
by night. 

And much wrong now that used to be 
right, 

So, thanking him, declined the hunt- 
ing, — 

AVas conduct ever more affronting? 

"\VitIi all the ceremony settled — 

With the towel ready, and the sewer 

Polishing up his oMest ewer. 

Anil the lei-.net pitched upon, a pie- 
bald, 

Black-barred, cream-eoated, and pink 
eye-balled, — 

No wonder if the Duke was nettled ! 

And when she persisted raverthe- 
less, — 

Well, I suppose here's the time to 
confess 

That there ran half round our lady's 
chamber 

A balcony none of the hardest to 
clamber ; 

And that Jacynth the tire-woman, 
ready in waiting. 

Staid in call outside, what need of 
relating? 

And since Jacynth was like a Jiine 
rose, why, a fervent 

Adorer of Jacynth of course was 
your servant ; 



And if she had the habit to peep 
through the casement, 

How could I keep at any vast dis- 
tance ? 

And so, as I say, on the lady's per- 
sistence, 

The Duke, dumb stricken with 
amazement. 

Stood for a while in a sultry smother. 

And then, with a smile that partook 
of the awful, 

Turned her over to his yellow mothei 

To learn what was decorous and law<= 
ful ; 

And the mother smelt blood with a 
cat-like instinct. 

As her cheek quick whitened through 
all its (piince-tinct. 

Oh, but the lady heard the whole 
truth at once ! 

What meant she? — Who was she? 
— Her duty and station, 

The wisdom of age and the folly of 
youth, at once. 

Its decent regard and its fitting rela- 
tion — 

In brief, my friends, set all the devilr 
in hell free 

And turn them out to carouse in a 
belfry 

And treat the priests to a fifty-part 
canon. 

And then you may guess how that 
tongue of hers ran on ! 

Well, somehow or other it ended at 
last, 

And, licking her whiskers, out shr 
))assed ; 

And after her, — making (he hoped) ^ 
face 

Like Emperor Nero or Sultan Sa 
ladin, 

Stalked the Duke's self with the au- 
stere grace 

Of ancient hero or modern paladin. 

From door to staircase — oh such a 
solemn 

Unbending of the vertebral colunui I 



However, at sunrise our company 
mustered ; 

And here was the huntsman bidding 
unkennel. 

And there 'neatli his bonnet the prick- 
er blustered, 

With feather dank as a bough of wet 
fennel ; 



16 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



For the court-j-ard walls were filled 

with fog 
You might cut as an axe chops a log — 
I^ike so much wool for color aud bulk- 

iness : 
Aiul out rode the Duke in a perfect 

sulkiuess ; 
Since, hel'ore breakfast, a man feels 

Lilt queasilj'. 
And a sinking at the lower abdomen 
Begins the day with indifferent 

omen. 
Aud lo ! as he looked around un- 
easily, 
The sun ploughed the fog up aud 

drove it asunder, 
This way and that, from the valley 

under ; 
And, looking through the court-yard 

arch, 
Down in the valley, what should meet 

him 
But a troop of gj'psies on their march ? 
No doubt with the annual gifts to 

greet him. 



xin. 

Now, in your land, gypsies reach yon, 

only 
After reaching all lands beside : 
North they go. South they go, troojv 

ing or lonely, 
And still, as they travel far and wide. 
Catch they and keep now a trace here, 

a trace there, 
That puts you in mind of a place here, 

a place there. 
But with us, I believe they rise out of 

the ground. 
And nowhere else, I take it, are found 
"^^ith the earth-tint yet so freshly em- 
browned ; 
Born, no doubt, like insects which 

breed on 
The very fruit they are meant to feed 

on. 
For the earth — not a use to which 

thej' don't turn it, 
The ore that grows in the mountain's 

womb, 
Or the sand in the pits like a honey- 
comb, 
They sift and soften it, bake it and 

burn it — 
\Yhether they weld j'ou, for instance, 

a suafHe 
•Yith side-bars never a brute can 

baffle; 



Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards 

within wards ; 
Or, if your colt's fore foot inclines to 

curve inwards. 
Horseshoes they hammer which turn 

on a swivel 
And won't allow the hoof to shrivel. 
Then they cast bells like the shell 

of the winkle 
That keep a stout heart in the ram 

with their tinkle ; 
But the sand — they pinch and pound 

it like otters ; 
Commend me to gj'psy glass-makers 

and potters ! 
Glasses thej''ll blow you, crystal, 

clear, 
"Where just a faint cloud of rose shall 

apjiear. 
As if in pure water you dropped and 

let die 
A bruised black-blooded mulberry ; 
And that other sort, their crowning 

pride, 
With long white threads distinct in- 
side. 
Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots 

which dangle 
Loose such a length and never tangle, 
AYhere the bold sword-lily cuts the 

clear waters. 
And the cup-lily couches with all the 

white daughters : 
Such are the works they put their 

hand to. 
The uses they turn and twist iron and 

sand to. 
And these made the troop, which our 

Duke saw sally 
Toward his castle from out of the 

valley, 
Men and women, like new-hatched 

spiders. 
Come out with the morning to greet 

our riders. 
And up they wound till they reached 

the ditch. 
Whereat all stopped save one, a 

witch 
That I knew, as she hobbled from the 

group. 
By her gait directly and her stoop, 
I, whom Jacynth was used to imjior- 

tune 
To let that same witch tell us our for- 
tune. 
The oldest gypsy then above ground ; 
And, sure as the autumn season came 

round, 



THE FLIGHT OF TTJE DUCHESS. 



17 



She paid us a visit for i^rofit or pas- 
time, 

And every time, as she swore, for the 
last time. 

And presently she was seei^ to sidle 

Up to the Duke till she touched his 
bri<lle, 

So that the horse of a sudden reared 
up 

As under its nose the old witch peered 
up 

With her worn-out eyes, or rather eye- 
holes. 

Of no use now but to gather brine, 

And began a kind of level whine 

Such as they used to sing to their 
viols 

When their ditties they go grinding 

Uji and down with nobody minding ; 

And then, as of old, at the end of the 
humming 

Her usual presents were forthcoming 

— A dog-whistle blowing the fiercest 
of trebles 

(Just a seashore stone holding a doz- 
en fine pebbles), 

Or a porcelain mouth-piece to screw 
on a pipe-end, — 

And so she awaited her annual sti- 
pend. 

But this time the Duke would scarcely 
vouchsafe 

A word in rejjly ; and in vain she 
felt 

With twitching fingers at her belt 

For the jiurse of sleek pine-martin 
pelt. 

Ready to put what he gave in her 
pouch safe, — 

Till, either to quicken his apprehen- 
sion. 

Or possibly with an after-intention, 

She was come, she said, to pay her 
duty 

To the new Duchess, the youthful 
beauty. 

No sooner had she named his lady. 

Than a shine lit up the face so shady, 

And its smirk returned with a novel 
meaning — 

For it struck him, the babe just want- 
ed weaning ; 

If one gave her a taste of what life 
was and sorrow. 

She, foolish to-day, would be wiser 
to-morrow ; 

And who so fit a teacher of trouble 

As this sordid crone bent well-nigh 
double ? 



So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture 
(If such it was, for they grow so liir- 

sute 
That their own fleece serves for nat- 
ural fur-suit) 
He was contrasting, 'twas plain from 

his gesture, 
The life of the lady so ffower-like and 

delicate 
With the loathsome squalor of this 

helicat. 
I, in brief, was the man the Duke 

beckoned 
From out of the throng ; and while I 

drew near 
He told the crone — as I since have 

reckoned 
By the way he bent and spoke into 

her ear 
With circumspection and mystery — 
The main of the lady's history, 
Her frowardness and ingratitude ; 
And for all the crone's submissive 

attitude 
I could see round her mouth the loose 

plaits tightening, 
And her brow with assenting intelli- 
gence brightening. 
As though she engaged with hearty 

good will 
Whatever he now might enjoin to 

fulfil. 
And promised the lady a thorough 

frightening. 
And so, just giving her a glimpse 
Of a purse, with the air of a man who 

imps 
The wing of the hawk that shall fetch 

the hernshaw. 
He bade me take the gypsy mother 
And set her telling some story or 

other 
Of hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw, 
To while away a weary hour 
For the lady left alone in her bower 
Whose mind and body craved excr 

tion 
And yet shrank from all better diver- 
sion. 



Then clapping heel to his horse, the 

mere curveter. 
Out rode the Duke, and after his 

hollo 
Horses and hoirnds swept, huntsman 

and servitor, 
And back I turned and bade the crone 

follow. 



18 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



And what makes me confident what's 

to be told you 
Had all along been of this crone's 

devising, 
Is, that, on looking round sharply, 

behold you, 
There was a novelty quick as surpris- 
ing : 
For first, she had shot up a full head 

in stature, 
And her stei) kept pace with mine nor 

faltered. 
As if age had foregone its usurpature. 
And the ignoble mien was wholly 

altered. 
And the face looked quite of another 

nature. 
And the change reached too, whatever 

the change meant, 
Her shaggj' wolf-skin cloak's arrange- 
ment : 
For where its tatters hung loose like 

sedges, 
Gold coins were glittering on the 

edges. 
Like the band-roll strung with tomans 
Which proves the veil a Persian 

woman's : 
And under her brow, like a snail's 

horns newly 
Come out as after the rain he paces. 
Two unmistakable eye-points duly 
Live and aware looked out of their 

places. 
So, we went and found Jacynth at the 

entry 
Of the lady's chamber standing sen- 
try ; 
I told the command and produced my 

companion, 
And Jacynth rejoiced to admit any 

one. 
For since last night, by the same 

token, 
Not a single word had the lady 

spoken : 
They went in both to the presence 

together, 
While I in the balcony watched the 

weather. 



And now, what took place at the very 

first of all, 
I cannot tell, as I never could learn 

it: 
Jacynth constantly wished a curse to 

fall 
On that little head of hers and burn it 



If she knew how she came to drop so 
sound]}'- 

Asleep of a sudden, and there coui 
tinue 

The whole time, sleeping as \)t:o- 
foundly 

As one of the boars my father would 
pin you 

'Twixt the eyes where life holds gar- 
rison, 

— Jacynth forgive me the comparison! 
But where I begin my own narration 
Is a little after I took my station 

To breathe the fresh air from the 

balconj', 
And, having in those days a falcon 

eye. 
To follow the hunt through the open 

country. 
From where the bushes thinlier 

crested 
The hillocks, to a plain where's not 

one tree. 
When, in a moment, my ear was 

arrested 
By — was it singing, or was it saying, 
Or a strange musical instrument play- 
ing 
In the chamber ? — and to be certain 
I pushed the lattice, pulled the cur- 
tain, 
And there lay Jacynth asleep, 
Yet as if a watch she tried to keep. 
In a rosy sleep along the floor 
With her head against the door ; 
While in the midst, on the seat of 

state. 
Was a queen — the gypsy woman late. 
With head and face downbent 
On the lady's head and face intent : 
For, coiled at her feet like a child at 

ease. 
The lady sat between her knees. 
And o'er them the lady's clasped 

hands met. 
And on those hands her chin was set. 
And her upturned face met the face 

of the crone 
Wherein the eyes had grown and 

growu 
As if she could double and quadruple 
At pleasure the play of either pupil 

— Very like, by her hands' slow fan- 

ning. 

As up and down like a gor-crow's 
flappers 

They moved to measure, or bell- 
clappers. 

I said, " Is it blessing, is it banning, 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



19 



Do they applaud you or burlesque 
you — 

Those hands and fingers with no flesh 
on ?" 

But, just as I thought to spring in to 
the rescue, 

At once I was stopped by the lady's 
expression : 

For it was life her eyes were drinking 

From the crone's wide pair above un- 
winking, 

— Life's pure fire, received without 

shrinking. 

Into the heart and breast whose heav- 
ing 

Told you no single drop they were 
leaving, 

— Life, that filling her, passed re- 

dundant 
Into her very hair, back swerving 
Over each shoulder, loose and abun- 
dant, 
As her head thrown back showed the 

white throat curving ; 
And the very tresses shared in the 

pleasure. 
Moving to the mystic measure. 
Bounding as the bosom bounded. 
I stopped short, more and more con- 
founded. 
As still her cheeks burned and eyes 

glistened. 
As she listened and she listened : 
When all at once a hand detained 

me. 
The selfsame contagion gained me. 
And I kept time to the wondrous 

chime. 
Making out words and prose and 

rhyme. 
Till it seemed that the music furled 
Cts wings like a task fulfilled, and 

dropped 
From under the words it first had 

propped. 
And left them midway in the world. 
Word took word as hand takes 

hand, 
I could hear at last, and understand, 
And when I held the unbroken thread, 
The gypsy said, — 

" And so at last we find my tribe. 
And so I set thee in the midst, 
And to one and all of them descrilie 
What thou saidst and what thou 

didst. 
Our long and terrible journey through. 
And all thou art ready to say and do 



In the trials that remain : 

I trace them the vein and the other 

vein 
That meet on thy brow and part again, 
Making our rapid mystic mark ; 
And I bid my people prove and probe 
Each eye's profound and glorious 

globe. 
Till they detect the kindred spark 
In those depths so dear and dark. 
Like the spots that snap and bursi 

and flee. 
Circling over the midnight sea. 
And on that round young cheek of 

thine 
I make them recognize the tinge, 
As wlten of the costly scarlet wine 
They drip so much as will impinge 
And spread in a thinnest scale afloat 
One thick gold drop from the olive's 

coat 
Over a silver plate whose sheen 
Still through the mixture shall be seen. 
For so I prove thee, to one and all. 
Fit, when my people ope their breast. 
To see the sign, and hear the call, 
And take the vow, and stand the test 
Which adds one more child to the 

rest — 
When the breast is bare and the arm* 

are wide. 
And the world is left outside. 
For there is probation to decree, 
And many and long must the trials be 
Thou shait victoriously endure. 
If that brow is true and those eyes 

are sure ; 
Like a jewel-finder's fierce assay 
Of the prize he dug from its moun- 
tain tomb, — 
Let once tlie vindicating ray 
Leap out amid the anxious gloom. 
And steel and fire have done theii 

part. 
And the prize falls on its finder's 

heart ; 
So, trial after trial past, 
Wilt thou fall at the very last 
Breathless, half in trance 
With the thrill of the great deliver- 
ance. 
Into our arms for evermore ; 
And thou shalt know, those arms 

once curled 
About thee, what we knew before. 
How love is the only good in the 

world. 
Henceforth be loved as heart can love 
Or brain devise, or hand approve ! 



20 



TEE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



Stand up, look below, 

It is our life at thy feet we throw 

To step with into'light and joy ; 

Not a jwwer of life but we employ 

To satisfy thy nature's want ; 

Art thou the tree that props the 

plant. 
Or Ine climbing plant that seeks the 

tree — 
Canst thou help us, must we help 

thee ? 
If any two creatures grew into one, 
They would do more than the world 

has done ; 
Though each apart were never so 

weak, 
Ye vainly through the world should 

seek 
For the knowledge and the might 
Which in such union grew their right : 
So, to approach at least that end, 
And blend, — as much as may be, 

blend 
Thee with us or us with thee, — 
As climbing plant or propping tree, 
Shall some one deck thee over and 

down. 
Up and about, with blossoms and 

leaves? 
Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland 

crown, 
Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine 

cleaves, 
Die on thy boughs and disappear 
While not a leaf of thine is sere ? 
Or is the other fate in store, 
And art thou fitted to adore. 
To give thy wondrous self away, 
And take a stronger nature's sway ? 
I foresee and could foretell 
Thy future portion, sure and well : 
But those passionate eyes speak true, 

speak true. 
Let them say what thou shall do ! 
Only be sure thy daily life. 
In its peace or in its strife, 
Never shall be unobserved ; 
We pursiie thy whole career, 
And hope for it, or doubt, or fear, — 
Lo, hast thou kept thy path or 

swerved. 
We are beside thee in all thy ways, 
With our blame, with our praise. 
Our shame to feel, our pride to show. 
Glad, angry — but indifferent, no ! 
Whether it be thy lot to go, 
For the good of us all, where the 

haters meet 
In the crowded city's horrible street ; 



Or thou step alone through the morass 

Where never sound yet was 

Save the dry quick clap of the stork's 

bill, 
For the air is still, and the water 

still. 
When the blue breast of the dipping 

coot 
Dives under, and all is mute. 
So at the last shall come old age, 
Decrepit as befits that stage ; 
How else wouldst thou retire apart 
With the hoarded memories of thy 

heart. 
And gather all to the very least 
Of the fragments of life's earlier feast, 
Let fall through eagerness to find 
The crowning dainties yet behind ? 
Ponder on the entire past 
Laid together thus at last, 
When the twilight helps to fuse 
The first fresh with the faded hues. 
And the outline of the whole, 
As round eve's shades their frame- 
work roll. 
Grandly fronts for once thy soul. 
And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam 
Of yet another morning breaks. 
And like the hand which ends a 

dream, 
Death, with the might of his sun- 
beam, 
Touches the fiesh and the soul 

awakes, 
Then"— 

Ay, then indeed something 
would happen ! 
But what? For here her voice 

changed like a bird's; 
There grew more of the music and 

less of the words; 
Had Jacynth only been by me to clap 

pen 
To paper and put you down every 

syllable 
With tiiose clever clerkly fingers, 
All I've forgotten as well as what 

lingers 
In this old brain of mine that's hut ill 

able 
To give you even this poor version 
Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with 

stammering! 
— More fault of those who had the 

hammering 
Of prosody into me and syntax, 
And did it, not with hobnails but tin- 
tacks! 
But to return from this excursion, — 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



■21 



Just, do you mark, when the song 
was sweetest, 

The peace luost deep and tlie charm 
completest, 

There came, shall I say, a snap — 

And the charm vanished ! 

And my sense returned, so strangely 
banished. 

And, starting as from a nap, 

I knew the crone was bewitching my 
lady, 

With Jacynth asleep; and but one 
spring made I 

Down from the casement, round to 
the portal, 

Another minute and I had entered, — 

When the door opened, and more 
than mortal 

Stood, with a face where to my mind 
centred 

All beauties I ever saw or shall see. 

The Duchess : I stopped as if struck 
by palsy. 

She was so different, happy and beau- 
tiful, 

I felt at once that all was best. 

And that I had nothing to do, for the 
rest. 

But wait her commands, obey and be 
dutiful. 

Not that, in fact, there was any com- 
manding ; 

I saw the glory of her eye. 

And the brow's height and the 
breast's expanding. 

And I was hers to live or to die. 

As for finding what she wanted. 

You know God Almighty granted 

Such little signs should serve wild 
creatures 

To tell one another all their desires. 

So that each knows what his friend 
requires. 

And does its bidding without teach- 
ers. 

I preceded her ; the crone 

Followed silent and alone ; 

I spoke to her, but she merely jab- 
bered 

In the old style ; both her eyes had 
slunk 

Back to their pits ; her stature 
shrunk ; 

In short, the soul in its body sunk 

Like a blade sent home to its scab- 
bard. 

Wc descended, I preceding ; 

Crossed the court with nobody heed- 
ing ; 



All the world was at the chase, 
The court-yard like a desert-place, 
The stable emptied of its small fry ; 
I saddled myself the very palfry 
I remember patting while it carried 

her. 
The day she arrived and the Duke 

married her. 
And, do you know, though it 's easy 

deceiving 
One's self in such matters, I can't help 

believing 
The lady had not forgotten it either. 
And knew the poor devil so much 

beneath her 
Would have been only too glad, for 

her service, 
To dance on hot ploughshares like a 

Turk dervise. 
But, unable to pay proper duty where 

owing it. 
Was reduced to that pitiful method 

of showing it. 
For though, the moment I began set- 
ting 
His saddle on my own nag of Be- 

rold's begetting 
(Not that I meant to be obtrusive). 
She stopped me, while his rug was 

shifting. 
By a single rapid finger's lifting. 
And, with a gesture kind but conclu- 
sive. 
And a little shake of the head, re- 
fused me, — 
I say, although she never used me. 
Yet when she was mounted, the 

gypsy behind her. 
And I ventured to remind her, 
I suppose with a voice of less steadi- 
ness 
Than usual, for my feeling exceeded 

me, 
— Something to the effect that I was 

in readiness 
Whenever God should please she 

needed me, — 
Then, do you know, her face looked 

down on me 
With a look that placed a crown on 

me. 
And she felt in her bosom, — mark, 

her bosom — 
And, as a flower-tree drops its 

blossom. 
Dropped me ... ah! had it been a 

purse 
Of silver, my friend, or gold that's 

worse. 



22 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



Wljy, you see, as soon as I found my- 
self . 

So understood, — that a true heart so 
may gain 

Such a reward, — I should have gone 
home again, 

Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned 
myself ! 

It was a little plait of hair 

Such as friends in a convent make 

To wear, each for the other's sake, — 

This, see, which at my breast I wear, 

Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudg- 
ment), 

And ever shall till the Day of Judg- 
ment. 

And then, — and then, — to cut short, 
— this is idle. 

These are feelings it is not good to 
foster, — 

I pushed the gate wide, she shook the 
bridle, 

And the palfrey bounded, — and so 
we lost her. 



"When the liquor's out why clink the 

cannikin ? 
I did think to describe you the panic in 
The redoubtable breast of our master 

the manikin. 
And what was the pitch of his moth- 
er's yellowness, 
How she turned as a shark to snap 

the spare-rib 
Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl- 

divino; Carib, 
When she heard, what she called the 

flight of the feloness 
— But it seems such child's play. 
What they said and did with the lady 

away ! 
And ^o dance on, when we've lost the 

music. 
Always made me — and no doubt 

makes you — sick. 
Nay, to my mind, the world's face 

looked so stern 
As that sweet form disappeared 

through the postern. 
She that kept it in constant good- 
humor. 
It ought to have stopped; there 

seemed nothing to do more. 
But the world thought otherwise and 

went on, 
And my head's one that its spite was 

spent on : 



Thirty years are tied since that morn- 
ing. 

And with them all my head's adorn- 
ing. 

Nor did the old Duchess die outright, 

As you expect, of suppressed spite, 

The natural end of every adder 

Not suffered to empty its poison- 
bladder : 

But she and her son agreed, I take 
it. 

That no one should touch on the story 
to wake it. 

For the wound in the Duke's pride 
rankled fiery ; 

So, they made no search and small 
inquiry : 

And when fresh gypsies have paid us 
a visit, I've 

Noticed the couple were never in- 
quisitive, 

But told them they're folks the Duke 
don't want here. 

And bade them make haste and cross 
the frontier. 

Brief, the Duchess was gone and the 
Duke was glad of it. 

And the old one was in the young 
one's stead, 

And took, in her place, the household's 
head. 

And a blessed time the household had 
of it ! 

And were I not, as a man may say, 
cautious 

How I trench, more than needs, on 
the nauseous, 

I could favor you with sundry touches 

Of the paint-smutches with which the 
Duchess 

Heightened the mellowness of her 
cheek's yellowness 

(To get on faster) until at last her 

Cheek grew to be one master-plaster 

Of mucus and f ucus from mere use of 
ceruse : 

In short, she grew from scalp to 
udder 

Just the object to make you shudder. 



xvn. 

You're my friend — 

What a "thing friendship is, world 
without end ! 

How it gives the heart and soul a stir- 
up 

As if somebody broached you a glori- 
ous runlet, 



THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 



23 



Aud poured out, all lovelily, spark- 
liugly, sunlit, 

Our green Moldavia, the streaky 
sirup, 

Cotnar as old as the time of the 
Druids — 

Friendship may match with that mon- 
arch of fluids ; 

Each supples a dry brain, fills you its 
ins-and-outs, 

Gives your life's hour-glass a shake 
when the thin sand douhts 

"Whether to run on or stoiJ short, and 
guarantees 

Age is not all made of stark sloth and 
arrant ease. 

I have seen my little lady once more, 

Jacynth, the gypsy, Berold, and the 
rest of it, 

For to me spoke the Duke, as I told 
you before ; 

I always wanted to make a clean 
breast of it : 

And now it is made — why, my heart's 
blood, that went trickle, 

Trickle, but anon, in such muddy 
driblets. 

Is pumped up brisk now, through the 
main ventricle. 

And genially floats me about the gib- 
lets. 

I'll tell you what I intend to do : 

I must see this fellow his sad life 
through — 

He is our Duke, after all. 

And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall. 

My father was born here, and I in- 
herit 

His fame, a chain he bound his son 
with ; 

Could I pay in a lumii I should pre- 
fer it. 

But there's no mine to blow up and 
get done with : 

So, I must stay till the end of the 
chapter. 

For, as to our middle-age-manners- 
adapter. 

Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on. 

Some day or other, his head in a mo- 
rion 

And breast in a hauberk, his heels 
he'll kick up, 

Slain by an onslaught fierce of hic- 
cup. 

And then, when red doth the sword 
of our Duke rust. 

And its leathern sheath lie o'ergrown 
with a b'ue crust. 



Then I shall scrape together my earn- 
ings ; 

For, you see, in the churchyard Ja- 
cynth reposes, 

Aud our children all went the way of 
the roses : 

It's a long lane that knows no turn= 
ings. 

One needs but little tackle to travel 
in ; 

So, just one stout cloak shall I indue : 

And for a staff, what beats the jave- 
lin 

With which his boars my father 
pinned you ? 

And then, for a purpose you shall 
hear presently, 

Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump 
skinful, 

I shall go joiu'ueying, who but I, 
l>leasantly 1 

Sorrow is vaiu and despondency sin- 
ful. 

What's a man's age ? He must hurry 
more, that's all ; 

Cram in a day, what his youth took a 
year to hold : 

When we mind labor, then only, 
we're too old — 

What age had Methusalem when he 
begat Saul ? 

And at last, as its haven some buffeted 
ship sees 

(Come all the way from the north- 
parts with sperm oil), 

I hope to get safely out of the tur- 
moil 

And arrive one day at the land of the 
gypsies. 

And find my lady, or hear the last 
news of lier 

From some old thief and son of Luci- 
fer, 

His forehead chapleted green witl: 
wreathy hop. 

Sunburned all over like an ^thiop. 

And when my Cotnar begins to oper- 
ate 

And the tongue of the rogue to run at 
a proper rate. 

And our wine-skin, tight once, shows 
each flaccid dent, 

I shall drop in with — as if by acci- 
dent — 

" You never knew, then, how it all 
ended, 

What fortune good or bad attended 

The little lady your Queen be- 
friended? " 



24 



SONG FROM ''PIPPA PASSES: 



— And when that's toUl me, what's 

remaining ? 

This world's too hard for my explain- 
ing. 

The same wise judge of matters equine 

WIio still preferred some slim four- 
year-old 

To the big-boned stock of mighty Be- 
rold, 

And, for strong Cotnar, drank French 
weak wine, 

He also must be such a lady's scorner! 

Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau: 

Now up, now down, the world's one 
seesaw. 

— So, I shall find out some snug cor- 

ner 

Under a hedge, like Orson the wood- 
knight, 

Turn myself round and bid the world 
good-night. 

And sleep a sound sleep till the trum- 
pet's blowing 

"Wakes me (unless priests cheat us 
laymen) 

To a world where will be no further 
throwing 

Pearls before swine that can't value 
them. Amen ! 



SONG FROM " PIPPA PASSES. 

The year's at the spring. 
And day's at the morn ; 
Morning's at seven ; 
The hill -side's dew-pearled ; 
The lark's on the wing ; 
The snail's on the thorn ; 
God's in his heaven — 
All's right with the world. 



« HOW THEY BROUGHT THE 
GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT 
TO AIX." 

[16-.] - 



I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and 
he ; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we gal- 
loped all three ; 



"Good speed!" cried the watch, as 

the gate-bolts undrew ; 
" Speed ! ' echoed the wall to us gal- 
loping througli ; 
Behind shut the postern, the lights 

sank to rest, 
And into the midnight we galloped 

abreast. 

II. 
Not a word to each other ; we kept the 

great pace 
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never 

changing oui place ; 
I turned in my saddle and made its 

girths tiglit. 
Then shortened each stirrup, and set 

the pique right, 
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained 

slacker the bit, 
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a 

whit. 

III. 
'Twas moonset at starting ; but, while 

we drew near 
Lokeren, the cocks crew, and twilight 

dawned clear ; 
At Boom, a great yellow star came 

out to see ; 
At Diiffeld, 'twas morning as plain as 

could be ; 
And from Mecheln church-steeple we 

heard the half-chime. 
So, Joris broke silence with, " Yet 

there is time ! " 

IV. 

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden 
the sun. 

And against him the cattle stood black 
every one. 

To stare through the mist at us gallop- 
ing past ; 

And I saw my stout galloper Roland 
at last, 

"With resolute shoulders, each butting 
away 

The haze, as some bluff river head- 
land its spray : 

V. 

And his low head and crest, just one 

sharp ear bent back 
For my voice, and the other pricked 

out on his track ; 
And one eye's black intelligence, — 

ever that glance 
O'er its white edge at me, his own 

master, askance 1 



SONG FROM "PARACELSUS: 



25 



And the thick heavy spume-flakes 
which aye ami anon 

His fierce lips shook U]3wards in gal- 
loping on. 



By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried 
Joris, " Stay spur ! 

Your Roos galloped bravely, the 
fault's not in her, 

We'll remenil)er at Aix " — for one 
heard the quick wheeze 

Of her chest, saw the stretched neck 
and staggering knees, 

And sunk tail, and horrible heave of 
the tlank. 

As down on her haunches she shud- 
dered and sank. 



So, we were left galloping, Joris and 
I, 

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud 
in the sky ; 

The broad sun above laughed a piti- 
less laugh, 

'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright 
stubble like chaff ; 

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire 
sprang white. 

And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for 
Aix is in sight ! 



" How they'll greet us ! " — and all in 
a moment his roan 

Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead 
as a stone ; 

And there was my Roland to bear the 
whole weight 

Of the news which alone could save 
Aix from her fate. 

With his nostrils like pits full of 
blood to the brim. 

And with circles of red for his eye- 
sockets' rim. 



Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each 

bolster let fall. 
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go 

belt and all. 
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted 

his ear, 
Called my Roland his pet-name, my 

horse without peer ; 



Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, 
any noise, bad or good. 

Till at length into Aix Roland gal- 
loped and stood. 



And all I remember is, friends flock- 
ing round 

As I sat with his head 'twixt my 
knees on the ground ; 

And no voice but was praising this 
Roland of mine, 

As I jioured down his throat our last 
measure of wine. 

Which (the burgesses voted by com- 
mon consent) 

Was no more than his due who 
brought good news from Ghent. 



SONG FROM "PARACELSUS." 



I. 

Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes 

Of labdanum, and aloe-balls. 
Smeared with dull nard an Indian 
wipes 
From out her hair : such balsam 

falls 
Down seaside mountain pedes- 
tals. 
From tree-tops where tired winds are 

fain. 
Spent with the vast and howling 

main. 
To treasure half their island gain. 



And strew faint sweetness from some 
old 
Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud 
Which breaks to dust when once un- 
rolled ; 
Or shredded perfume, like a cloud 
From closet long to quiet vowed. 
With mothed and dropping arras 

hung. 
Mouldering her lute and books 

among. 
As when a queen, long dead, was 
young. 



26 



THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR. 



THROUGH THE METIDJA INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH 
TO ABD-EL-KADR. CAMP. 



[1842.] 



As I ride, as I ride, 

With a full heart for my guide, 

So its tide rocks my side, 

As I ride, as I ride. 

That, as I were double-eyed. 

He, in whom our Tribes confide, 

Is descried, ways uutried 

As I ride, as I ride. 



As I ride, as I ride 

To our Chief and his Allied, 

Who dares chide my heart's pride 

As I ride, as I ride ? 

Or are witnesses denied — 

Through the desert waste and wide 

Do I glide unespied 

As I ride, as I ride ? 



As I ride, as I ride, 

When an inner voice has cried, 

The sands slide, nor abide 

(As I ride, as I ride) 

O'er each visioned homicide 

That came vaunting (has he lied?) 

To reside — where he died, 

As I ride, as I ride. 

IV. 

As I ride, as I ride. 

Ne'er has spur my swift horse pliea. 

Yet his hide, streaked and pied. 

As I ride, as I ride, 

Shows where sweat has sprung and 

dried, 
— Zebra-footed, ostrich-thighed — 
How has vied stride with stride 
As I ride, as I ride ! 

V. 

As I ride, as I ride, \ 
Could I loose what Fate has tied. 
Ere I pride, she should hide 
(As I ride, as I ride) 
All that's meant me — satisfied 
When the Prophet and the Bride 
Stop veins I'd have subside 
As I ride, as I ride ! 



You know, we French stormed Rat- 
isbon : 

A mile or so away 
On a little mound, Napoleon 

Stood on our storming-day; 
With neck out -thrust, you fancj 
how. 

Legs wide, arms locked behind. 
As if to balance the prone brow 

Oppressive with its mind. 



Just as perhaps he mused, " INIy plans 

That soar, to earth may fall. 
Let once my army-leader Lannes 

Waver at vonder wall," — 
Out 'twixt the battery smokes there 
flew 

A rider, bound on bound 
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew 

Until he reached the mound. 



Then off there flung in smiling ]oy. 

And held himself erect 
By just his horse's mane, a boy: 

You hardlv could suspect — 
(So tight he kept his lips compressed. 

Scarce any blood came through) 
You looked twice ere you saw his 
breast 

Was all but shot in two. 



IV. 

"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by 
God's grace 

We've got vou Ratisbon ! 
The Marshal's in the market-place. 

And vou'U be there anon 
To see your flag-bird flap his vans 

Where I, to heart's desire. 
Perched him ! " The chief's eye 
flashed : his plans 

Soared up again like fire. 

V. 

The chief's eve flashed ; hut presently 
Softened itself, as sheathes 

A film the mother-eagle's eye 
When her bruised eaglet breathes 



IN A GONDOLA. 



27 



" You're wounded ! " — " Nay," the 
soldier's pride 
Touched to the quick, he said, 
"I'm killed. Sire!" And his chief 
beside, 
Smiling, the boy fell dead. 



THE LOST LEADER. 



Just for a handful of silver he left iis. 
Just for a ribbon to stick in his 
coat — 
Found the one gift of which fortune 
ber(!ft us. 
Lost all the others, she lets us 
devote ; 
They, with the gold to give, doled 
him out silver, 
So mucli was theirs who so little 
allowed : 
How all our copper had gone for his 
service ! 
Kags— were they purple, his heart 
had been proud ! 
We that had loved him so, followed 
him, honored him. 
Lived in his mild and magnificent 
eye, 
Learned his great language, caught 
his clear accents. 
Made him our i^attern to live and 
to die ! 
Shakspeare was of us, Milton was for 
us, 
Burns, Sl.elley, were with us, — 
they watch froci their graves ! 
He alone breaks from the van and 
the freemen. 
He alone sinks o the rear and the 
slaves 1 



We shall march prospering, — not 
through his presence ; 
Songs may inspirit us, — not from 
his lyre ; 
Deeds will be done, — while he boasts 
his quiescence. 
Still bidding crouch whom the rest 
bade aspire ; 
Blot out his name, then, record one 
lost soul more. 
One task more declined, one more 
footpath untrod, 



One more devil's-triumph and sorrow 
for angels. 
One wrong more to man, one more 
insult to God ! 
Life's night begins : let him never 
come back to us ! 
There would be doubt, hesitation, 
and ]iain, 
Forced praise on our part — the glim- 
mer of twilight. 
Never glad confident niorningagain£ 
Best fight on well, for we taught him 
— strike gallantly, 
Menace our heart ere we master his 
own ; 
Then let him receive the new knowl- 
edge and wait us. 
Pardoned in heaven, the first by 
the throne ! 



IN A GONDOLA. 

He sings. 

I SEND my heart uj) to thee, all my 
lieart 
In this my singing. 
For the stars help me, and the sea 
bears part ; 
The very night is clinging 
Closer to Venice' streets to leave one 
space 
Above me, whence thj' face 
May light my joyous heart to thee its 
dwelling-place. 



She speaks. 

Say after me, and try to say 
My very words, as if each word 
Came from you of your own accord. 
In your own voice, in your own 

way : 
" This woman's heart and soul and 

brain 
Are mine as much as this gold chain 
She bids me wear ; which " (say again) 
" I choose to make by cherishing 
A jn-ecious thing, or choose to fling 
Over the boat-side, ring by ring." 
And yet once more say ... no word 

more ! 
Since words are only words. Give 

o'er ! 



28 



IN A GONDOLA. 



Unless you call me, all the same, 

FHiniliarly by my pet name. 

Which if the Three should hear you 

call, 
And me reply to, would proclaim 
At once our secret to them all. 
Ask of me, too, command me, blame — 
Do, break down the partition-wall 
'Twixt us, the daylight world beholds 
Curtained in dusk and splendid folds ! 
What's left but— all of me to take ? 
I am the Thn^e's : prevent them, slake 
Your thirst ! 'Tis said, the Arab sage. 
In practising with gems, can loose 
Their suljtle spirit in his cruce 
And leave but ashes : so, sweet mage, 
Loave them my ashes when thy use 
Sucks out my soul, thy heritage ! 

He sings. 



Past we glide, and past, and past ! 

"What's that poor Agnese doing 
"Where they make the shutters fast ? 

Ciray Zanobi's just a-wooing 
To bis couch the purchased bride : 

Past we glide ! 



Pa.-,t we glide, and past, and ]iast ! 

AVhy's the Pucci Palace flaring 
Like a beacon to the blast ? 

Guests by hundreds, not one caring 
If the dear host's neck were wried : 

Past we glide ! 



She sings. 



The moth's kiss, first ! 

Kiss me as if you made believe 

You were not sure, this eve, 

How my face, j'our flower, had pursed 

Its petals up ; so, here and there 

You bnish it, till I grow aware 

Who \yants me, and wide ope I burst. 



The bee's kiss, now ! 
Kiss me as if you entered gay 
My heart at some noonday, 
A bud that dares not disallow 
The claim, so all is rendei-ed up, 
And jiassively its shattered cup 
Over your head to sleep I bow. 



He sings. 



What are we two ? 

I am a Jew, 

And carry thee, farther than friends 

can pui'sue. 
To a feast of our tribe; 
Where they need thee to bribe 
The Devil that blasts them unless lie 

imbibe 
Thy . . . Scatter the vision forever ' 

And now, 
As of old, I am I, thou art thou ! 



Say again, what we are ? 

The sprite of a star, 

I lure thee above where the destinies 

bar 
My plumes their full play 
Till a ruddier ray 
Than my pale one announce there is 

M'ithering away 
Some . . . Scatter the vision forever 1 

And now. 
As of old, I am I, thou art thou I 

He muses. 

Oh! which were best, to roam or 

rest ? 
The land's lap or the water's breast? 
To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves. 
Or swim in lucid shallows, just 
Eluding water-lily leaves. 
An inch from Death's black fingers.. 

thrust 
To lock you, whom release he must; 
Which life were best on summer 

eves ? 

He speaks, musing. 

Lie back; could tliought of mine im. 

prove you ? 
From this shoulder let there spring 
A wing; from this, another wing; 
Wings, not legs and feet, shall mova 

you! 
Snow-white must they spring, to 

blend 
With youv flesh, but I intend 
They shall deepen to the end, 
Br(>ader, iiito burning gold. 
Till both wings crescent-wise infold 



IN A GONDOLA. 



29 



i''our i)erfect self, from 'iieatli your 

feet 
To o'er your head, wliere, lo, they 

meet 
As if a million sword-blades hurled 
Defiance from you to the world ! 

Rescue me thou, the only real ! 
And scare awaj' this mad ideal 
Tliat came, nor motions to depart ! 
riianks ! Now, stay ever as thou art! 



Still he muses. 



What if the Three should catch at 

last 
Thy serenader ? While there's cast 
Paul's cloak about my head, and fast 
Gian pinions me, Himself has past 
His stylet through my back ; I reel ; 
And ... is it thou I feel ? 



They trail me, these three godless 

knaves, 
Past every church that saints and 

saves, 
Nor stop till, where the cold sea 

raves 
By Lido's wet accursed graves, 
They scoop mine, roll me to its 

brink. 
And ... on thy breast I sink ! 



She replies, musing. 

Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, 

elbow-deep. 
As I do : thus : were death so unlike 

sleep, 
Caught this way ? Death's to fear 

from flame or steel. 
Or poison doubtless ; but from water 

— feel ! 
Go find the bottom ! Would you stay 

me ? There ! 
Now pluck a great blade of that rib- 
bon-grass 
To plait in where the foolish jewel 

was, 
I flung away : since you have praised 

my hair, 
'Tis proper to be choice in what I 

wear. 



He speaks. 

Row home ? must we row home ? Too 

surely 
Know I where its front's demurely 
Over the Guidecca jiiled ; 
Window just with window mating, 
Door on door exactly waiting. 
All's the set face of a child : 
But behind it, where's a trace 
Of the staidness and reserve, 
And formal lines without a curve. 
In the same child's playing-face ? 
No two windows look one way 
O'er the small sea-water thread 
Below them. Ah, the autumn day 
I, passing, saw you overhead ! 
First, out a cloud of curtain blew, 
Then a sweet cry, and last came 

you — 
To catch your lorj^ that must needs 
Escape just then, of all times then, 
To peck' a tall plant's fleecy seeds 
And make me happiest of men. 
I scarce could breathe to see you 

reach 
So far back o'er the balcony. 
To catch him ere he climbed too 

high 
Above you in the Smyrna peach, 
That quick the round smooth cord of 

gold. 
This coiled hair on your head, un- 
rolled, 
Fell down you like a gorgeous snake 
The Roman girls were wont, of old. 
When Rome there was, for coolness' 

sake 
To let lie curling o'er their bosoms 
Dear lory, may his beak retain 
Ever its delicate rose stain, 
As if the wounded lotus-blossoms 
Had marked their thief to know 

again ! 

Stay longer yet, for others' sake 
Than mine ! What should your cham. 

ber do ? 
— With all its rarities that ache 
In silence while day lasts, but wake 
At night-time and their life renew, 
Suspended just to pleasure you 
Who brought against their will to 

gether 
These objects, and, while day lasts, 

weave 
Around them such a magic tether 
That dumb they look : your harp. 

believe, 



30 



A LOVERS' QUARREL. 



With all the sensitive tight strings 
Wliich dare not speak, now to itself 
Breathes slumberously, as if some 

elf 
Went in and out the chords, his wings 
Make murmur, wheresoe'er they 

graze, 
As an angol may, between the maze 
Of midnight paiaoe-jiillars, on 
And on, to sow God's plagues, have 

gone 
Through guilty glorious Babylon. 
And while such murmurs flow, the 

nymph 
Bends "o'er the harp-top from her 

shell 
As the dry limpet for the lymph 
Come witli a tune he knows so well. 
And how vour statues' hearts must 

swell! 
And how your pictures must descend 
To see eacli other, friend with friend ! 
Oh, could you take them by surprise, 
You'd find Sehidone's eager Duke 
Doing the qiuiintest courtesies 
To that prim saint by Haste-thce- 

Luke ! 
And, deeper into her rock den, 
Bold Gastelfrancti's INIagdalen 
You'd find retreated from the ken 
Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser — 
As if the Tizian thinks of her. 
And is not, rather, gravely bent 
On seeing for himself what toys 
Ave these, his progeny invent. 
What litter now the board employs 
Whereon he signed a document 
That got him murdered ! Each en- 
joys 
Its night so well, you cannot bi'cak 
The sport up : so, indeed must make 
More stay witli me, for others' sake. 



She S2)eaks. 



To-morrow, if a harji-string, say, 
la used to tie the jasmine back 
That overfloods my room with sweets. 
Contrive your Zorzi somehow, meets 
My Zanze ! If the ribbon's black. 
The Three are watching : keep away ! 



Your gondola — let Zorzi wreathe 
A mesh of water-weeds about 
Ita prow, as if he unaware 



Had struck some quay or bridge-foot 

stair ! 
That I may throw a paper out 
As you and he go underneath. 

There's Zanze's vigilant taper ; safe 

are we. 
Only one minute more to-night with 

me? 
Resume your past self of a month 

ago ! 
Be you the bashful gallant, I will 

be 
Tlie lady with the colder breast than 

snow. 
Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch 

my hand 
More than I touch yours when I step 

to land, 
And say, " All thanks, Siora ! " — 

Heart to heart 
And lips to lips ! Y^'et once more, ere 

we part. 
Clasp me and make me thine, as mine 

thou art ! 



lie is surprised, and stabbed. 

It was ordained to be so, sweet ! — 
and best 

Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon 
thy breast. 

Still kiss me ! Care not for the cow- 
ards ! Care 

Onlv to put aside thv beauteous hair 

My blood will hurt f The Three, I do 
not scorn. 

To death, because they never lived: 
but I 

Have lived indeed, and so — (yet one 
more kiss) — can die ! 



A LOVERS' QUARREL. 



Oh, what a dawn of day ! 

How the March sun feels like May 1 

All is blue again 

After last night's rain, 
And the South dries tlie hawthorn 
spray. 

Only, my Love's away 1 
I'd as lief that the blue were gray 



A lov/:rs' quarrel. 



31 



Runnels, whicli rillets swell, 
Must be (lancing down the dell, 

With a ioaining head 

On the beryl bed 
Paven smooth as a hermit's cell : 

Each with a tale to tcill, 
Could my love but attend as well. 



Dearest, three months ago, 
When we lived blocked up with 
snow, — 

When the wind would edge 

In and in his wedge, 
In, as far as the point could go — 

Not to our ingle, though, 
Where we loved each the other so I 



Laughs with so little cause ! 
We devised games out of straws. 

We would try and trace 

One another's face 
In the ash, as an artist draws ; 

Free on each other's flaws. 
How we chattered like two church 
daws ! 



What's in the " Times " ? — a scold 
At the Emperor deep and cold; 

He lias taken a bride 

To his grewsome side, 
That's as fair as himself is bold : 

There they sit ermine-stoled, 
And she powders her hair with gold. 



Fancy the Pampas' sheen ! 
Miles and miles of gold and green 

Where the sunflowers blow 

In a solid glow, 
And to break now and then the 
screen — 

Black neck and eyeballs keen, 
Up a wild horse leaps between ! 



Try, will our table turn ? 

Lay your hands there light, and yearn 

"riil the yearning slijis 

Through the finger-tips 
m a fire which a few discern, 

And a very few feel burn, 
And the rest, they may live and 
learn ! 



Then we would up and pace, 

For a change, about the place, 
Each with arm o'er ueck : 
'T is our quarter-deck, 

We are seamen in woeful case. 
Helji in the ocean-space ! 

Or, if no help, we'll embrace. 



S(;e, how she looks now, dressed 
In a sledging-cap and vest ! 

'T is a huge fur cloak — 

Like a reindeer's roke 
Falls the lappet along the breast : 

Sleeves for her arts to rest. 
Or to hang, as my Love likea best. 



Teach me to flirt a fan 
As the Spanish ladies can. 

Or I tint your lip 

With a burnt stick's tip 
And you turn into such a man ! 

Just the two spots that span 
Half the bill of the young male swan. 



Dearest, three months ago 
When the mesmerizer Snow 

With his hand's first sweep 

Put the earth to sleep 
'Twas a time when the heart could 
show 

All — how was earth to know, 
'Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro? 



Dearest, three months ago 
When we loved each other so, 

Lived and loved the same 

Till an evening came 
When a shaft from the Devil's bow 

Pierced to our ingle-glow. 
And the friends were friend and foe I 



Not from the heart beneath — 
'Twas a bubble born of breath, 

Neither sneer nor vaunt, 

Nor rejiroach nor taunt. 
See a word, how it severeth ! 

Oh, power of life and death 
In the tongue, as the Preacher saith I 



32 



EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES. 



Wonuiii, anil will you cast 
For a word, quite off at last 

Mc, your own, your You, — 

Since, as truth is true, 
I was You all the happy past — 

Me ilo you leave aghast 
With the memories We amassed ? 



Jfjove, if you knew the light 
That your soul casts in my sight. 

How I look to you 

For the pure ami true, 
And the beauteous and the right, — 

Bear with a moment's spite 
Wheu a mere mote threats the white! 



XVI. 

What of a hasty word ? 

Is till! fleshly lieart not stirred 
By a worm's pin-prick 
Where its roots are quick ? 

See the eye, by a fly 's-foot blurred — 
Ear, wiien a straw is heard 

Scratch the brain's coat of curd ! 



XVII. 

Foul be the world or fair 

Mor(> or less, how can I care ? 
'Tis the world the same 
For my praise or blame, 

And endui'anoe is easy there. 
Wrong in the one thing rare — 

Oh, it is hard to bear ! 



XVIII. 

Here's the spring back or close. 
When the almond-blossom blows ; 

We shall have the w-ord 

In a minor third 
Tliere is none but the cuckoo knows : 

Heaps of the guelder-rose ! 
I must bear with it, I suppose. 



Could but November come. 
Were the noisy birds struck dumb 

At the warning slash 

Of liis driver's-lash — 
I would laugh like the valiant Thumb 

Facing the castle glum 
And the giant's fee-faw-fum I 



Then, were the world well stripped 
Of the gear wlua'cin equipped 

We can stand apart. 

Heart disi)ense with heart 
In the sun, with the tlowers un- 
nipped, — 

Oh, the world's hangings ripped, 
We were both in a bare-\valled ciypt i 

XXI. 

Each in the crypt would cry, 

" But one freezes here ! and why? 

When a heart, as chill. 

At my own would thrill 
Back to life, and its fires out-fly? 

Heart, shall we live or die ? 
The rest . . . settle by and by 1 " 

xxn. 
So, she'd efface the score, 
And forgive me as before. 

It is twelve o'clock: 

I shall hear her knock 
In the worst of a storm's uproar: 

I shall pull her through the door, 
I shall have her for evermore ! 



EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES. 



See, as the prettiest graves will do in 

time. 
Our poet's wants the freshness of its 

prime ; 
Spite of the sexton's browsing horse, 

the sods 
Have struggled through its binding 

osier rods; 
Headstone and half-sunk footstone 

lean awry. 
Wanting the brick-work promised by 

and by; 
How the minute gray lichens, plate 

o'er plat(>, 
Have softened down the crisjvcut 

name and date ! 



So, the year's done with 1 

(Lore inc fon'rcr .') 

All ]S[arch begun with, 

April's endeavor ; 



THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER. 



83 



May-wreaths that bound ine 
June needs must sever; 

Now snows fall round me, 
Quenching June's lever — 
(Love me forever i) 



THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER. 



I sAin — Then, dearest, since 'tis so. 
Since now at length my fate I know, 
Since nothing all my love avails. 
Since all, my life seemed meant for, 

fails, 
Since this was written and needs 

must be — 
My whole heart rises up to bless 
Your name in pride and thankfulness ! 
Take back the hope you gave, — I 

claim 
Only a memory of the same, 
— And this beside, if you will not 

blame. 
Your leave for one more last ride 

with me. 



My mistress bent that brow of hers ; 
Those deep dark eyes where pride 

(leiiuirs 
When pity would be softening through. 
Fixed uk; a breathing-while or two 
With life or death in the balance: 

right ! 
The blood replenished me again ; 
My last thought was at least not 

vain : 
I and my mistress, side by side, 
Shall be together, breathe and ride, 
^o, one day more am I deified. 
"Who knows but the world may end 

to-night? 



Hush! if you saw some western cloud 
All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed 
liy many benedictions — sun's 
And moon's and eveuing-star's at 

once — 
And so, you, looking and loving 

best. 
Conscious grew, j-our passion drew 
Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine 

too, 



Down on you, near and yet more near. 
Till flesh must fade for heaven was 

here ! — 
Thus leant she and lingered — joy and 

fear 
Thus lay she a moment on my 

breast. 

IV. 

Then we began to ride. My soul 
Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped 

scroll 
Freshening and fluttering in the 

wind. 
Past hopes already lay behind. 
What need to strive with a life 

awry ? 
Had I said that, had I done this, 
So might I gain, so might I miss. 
Might she have loved me ? just as 

well 
She might have hated, who can tell! 
Where had I been now if the worst 

befell ? 
And here we are riding, she and I. 



Fail I alone, in words and deeds ? 
Why, all men strive and who suc- 
ceeds ? 
We rode; it seemed my spirit flew. 
Saw other regions, cities new, 
As the world rushed by on either 
side. 
I thought, — All labor, yet no less 
Bear up beneath their unsuccess. 
Look at the end of work, contrast 
The petty done, the undone vast, 
This present of theirs with the hope- 
ful past ! 
I hoped she would love me : here 
we ride. 

VI. 

What hand and brain went ever 
paired ? 

What heart alike conceived and 
dared ? 

What act proved all its thought had 
been ? 

What will but felt the fleshy screen ? 
We ride and I see her bosom heave. 

There's many a crown for who can 
reach. 

Ten lines, a statesman's life in each ! 

The flag stuck on a heap of bones, 

A soldier's doing ! what atones ? 

They scratch his name on the Abbey- 
stones. 
My riding is better, by their leave. 



34 



MESMERISM. 



What does it all mean, poet ? AVell, 
Your brains beat into rhythm, you 

tell 
What we felt only ; yon expressed 
Yon hold things beantiful the best. 
And pace them in rhyme so, side 

by side. 
Tis something, nay 'tis much: but 

then, 
Have you yourself what's best for 

men? 
Are you — poor, sick, old ere your 

time — 
Nearer one whit your own sublime 
Than we who have never turned a 

rhyme ? 
Sing, riding's f% joy! For me, I ride. 



And you, great sculptor — so, yon gave 
A score of years to Art, her slave. 
And that's your Venus, whence we 

turn 
To j'onder girl that fords the burn .' 

You acquiesce, and shall I repine? 
What, man of music, j'ou grown gray 
With notes and nothing else to say. 
Is this your sole praise from a friend, 
" Greatly his opera's strains intend, 
But in music we know how fashions 

end! " 
I gave my youth; but we ride, in 

fine. 

IX. 

Who knows what's fit for us? Had 

fate 
Proposed bliss here should sublimate 
My being — liad I signed the bond — 
Still one must lead some life beyond. 
Have a bliss to die with, dim-de- 
scried. 
This foot once planted on the goal, 
Tliis glory-garland round my soul, 
Could I descry such ? Try and test ! 
I sink back shuddering from the quest. 
Earth being so good, would heaven 
seem best ? 
Now, heaven and she are beyond 
this ride. 



And yet — she has not spoke so long! 

What if heaven be that, fair and 
strong 

At life's best, with our eyes upturned 

Whither life's flower is first dis- 
cerned. 



We, fixed so, ever should so abide ? 
What if we still ride on, we two, 
With life forever old yet new. 
Changed not in kind but in degree, 
The instant made eternity, — 
And heaven just prove tliat I and she 

Ride, ride together, forever ride ? 



MESMERISM. 



All I believed is true ! 

I am able yet 

All I want, to get 
By a method as strange as new. 
Dare I trust the same to you ? 



If at night, when doors are shut, 

And the wood-worm picks, 

And the death-watch ticks. 

And the bar has a Hag of smut, 

And a cat's in the water-butt — 



And the socket floats and flares, 

And the house-beams groan. 

And a foot unknown 

Is surmised on the garret-stairs. 

And the locks slip unawares — 



And the spider, to serve his ends, 

Bj' a sudden thread. 

Arms and legs outspread, 
Ou the table's midst descends. 
Comes to find, God knows what 
friends ! — 



If since eve drew in, I say, 
I have sat and brought 
(So to speak) my thought 
To bear on the woman away, 
Till I felt my hair turn gray — 



Till I seemed to have and hold, 

In the vacancy 

'Twixt the wall and me 
From the hair-plait's chestnut-gold 
To the foot in its muslin fold — 



MESMERISM. 



35 



Have and liokl, then and there, 
Her, from head to foot, 
Breatliing and mute, 

Passive and yet aware. 

In the grasp of my steady stare ■ 

VIII. 

Hold and have, there and then, 
All her body and soul 
That completes my whole, 
All that women add to men. 
In the clutch of my steady ken- 



Having and holding, till 

I imi>rint her fast 

On the void at last 
As the sun does whom he will 
By the calotypist's skill — 



Then, — if my heart's strength serve, 
And through all and each 
Of the veils I reach 

To her soul and never swerve, 

Knitting an iron nerve — 



Command her soul to advance 
And inform the shape 
Which has made escape 
And before my countenance 
Answers me glance for glance - 



I, still with a gesture fit 
Of my hands that best 
Do my soul's behest. 
Pointing the power from it, 
While myself do steadfast sit - 

XIII. 

Steadfast and still the same 
On my object bent, 
While the hands give vent 
To my ardor and my aim 
And break into very flame — 



Then I reach, I must believe, 
Not her soul in vain. 
For to me again 
It reaches, and past retrieve 
Is wound in the toils I weave 



XV. 

And must follow as I require, 

As befits a thrall. 

Bringing flesh and all, 
Essence and earth-attire. 
To the source of the tractile fire : 



Till the house called hers, not mine. 

With a growing weight 

Seems to suffocate 
If she break not its leaden line 
And escape from its close confine. 

XVII. 

Out of doors into the night ! 

On to the maze 

Of the wild wood-ways, 
Not turning to left nor right 
From the pathway, blind with sight - 

XVIII. 

Making through rain and wind 
O'er the broken shrubs, 
'Twixt the stems and stubs, 
With a still, composed, strong mind, 
Not a care for the world behind — 



Swifter and still more swift. 

As the crowding peace 

Doth to joy increase 
In the wide blind eyes uplift 
Through the darkness and the drifti 



While I — to the shape, I, too. 

Feel my soul dilate : 

Nor a whit abate, 
And relax not a gesture due. 
As I see my belief come true. 



For, there ! have I drawn or no 

Life to that lip ? 

Do my fingers dip 
In a flame which again they throw 
On the cheek that breaks aglow ? 

XXII. 

Ha ! was the hair so first ? 

What, unfilleted. 

Made alive, and spread 
Through the void with a rich outburst. 
Chestnut gold-interspersed? 



36 



BV THE FIRESIDE. 



XXIll. 

Like the doors of a casket-shrine, 

See, on either side, 

Her two arms divide 
Till the heart betwixt makes sign, 
" Take me, for I am thine ! " 

XXIV. 

" Now — now " — the door is heard I 
Hark, the stairs ! and near — 
Nearer — and here — 
" Now ! " and, at call the third, 

She enters without a word. 

XXV. 

On doth she march and on 

To the fancied shape ; 

It is, past escape, 
Herself, now : tlie dream is done. 
And the shadow and she are one. 

XXVI. 

First, I will pray. Do Thou 

That ownest the soul. 

Yet wilt grant control 
To another, nor disallow 
For a time, restrain me now 1 

XXVII. 

I admonish me while I may, 

Not to squander guilt, 

Since require Thou wilt 
At my hand its price one day ! 
What the price is, who can say ? 



BY THE FIRESIDE. 



How well I know what I mean to 
do 
When the long dark autumn even- 
ings come ; 
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant 
hue ? 
With the music of all thy voices, 
dumb 
In life's Novemher too ! 



I shall be found by the fire, suppose. 
O'er a great wise book, as beseeiu- 
etb age ; 



While the shutters Hap as the cross- 
wind blows, 
And I turn the page, and I turn the 
page, 

Not verse now, only prose ! 



Till the young ones whisper, linger 
on lip, 

" There he is at it, deep in Greek : 
Now then, or never, out we slip 

To cut from the hazels by the creek 
A mainmast for our ship ! " 



I shall be at it indeed, nxy friends ! 

Greek puts already on either side 
Such a branch-work forth as soon ex- 
tends 

To a vista opening far and wide, 
And I pass out where it ends. 



The outside frame, like your hazel- 
trees — 

But the inside-archway widens fa«*, 
And a rarer sort succeeds to these, 

And we slope to Italy at last 
And youth, by green degrees. 



I follow wherever I am led. 

Knowing so well the leader's hand : 
O woman-country, wooed not wed. 

Loved all the more by earth's male- 
lands, 
Laid to their hearts instead I 



Look at the ruined chapel again 
Half-way up in the Alpine gorge ! 

Is that a tower, I point you plain, 
Or is it a mill, or an iron forge 

Breaks solitude in vain ? 



A turn, and we stand in the heart ol 
things ; 
The woods are round us, heaped 
and dim : 
From slab to slab how it slips and 
springs, 
The thread of water single and slim, 
Throiigh the ravage some torrent 
brings I 



BY THE FIRESIDE. 



37 



Does it feed the little lake below ? 

That speck of white just on its marge 
Is Pella ; see, in the evening glow, 

How sharp the silver spear-lieads 
charge 
When Alp meets heaven in snow ! 



On our other side is the straight-up 
rock ; 
And a path is kept ''Iwixt the gorge 
and it 
By bowlder-stones, where lichens 
mock 
The marks on a moth, and small 
ferns tit 
Their teeth to the polished block. 



Oh the sense of the yellow mountain 
tiowei's, 
And thorny balls, each three in one, 
The chestnuts throw on our path in 
showers ! 
For the drop of the woodland fruit's 
begun, 
These early November hours, 



That crimson the creeper's leaf across 
Like a splash of blood, intense, ab- 
rupt, 
O'er a shield else gold from rim to 
boss. 
And lay it for show on the fairy- 
cupped 
Elf-needled mat of moss, 



By the rose-flesh mushrooms, undi- 
vulged 
Last evening — nay, in to-day's first 
dew 
Yon sudden coral nipple bulged, 
Where a freaked fawn-colored 
flaky crew 
Of toad-stools peep indulged. 



A.nd yonder, at foot of the fronting 
ridge 
That takes the turn to a range be- 
yond, 



Is the chapel reached by the one- 
arched bridge. 
Where the water is stopped in a 
stagnant pond 

Danced over by the midge. 



The chapel and bridge are of stone 
alike. 
Blackish-gray and mostly wet ; 
Cut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow 
dike. 
See here again, how the lichens fret 
And the roots of the ivy strike ! 



Poor little place, where its one priest 
comes 
On a festa-da.y, if he comes at all. 
To the dozen folk from their scattered 
homes. 
Gathered within that precinct small 
By the dozen ways one roams — 



To drop from tliQ charcoal-burners' 
huts, 

- Or climb from the hemp-dresser's 
low shed. 

Leave the grange where the wood- 
man stores his nuts. 
Or the wattled cote where the 
fowlers spread 

Their gear on the rock's bare juts. 

XVIII. 

It has some pretension too, this front, 
With its bit of fresco half-moon- 
wise 

Set over the porch. Art's early wont : 
'Tis John in the Desert, I surmise. 

But has borne the weather's brunt — 



Not from the fault of the builder, 
though. 
For a pent-house properly projects 
Where three carved beams make a 
certain show. 
Dating — good thought of our archi- 
tect's — 
'Five, six, nine, he lets you know. 



And all day long a bird sings there, 
And a stray shee^J drinks at tha 
pond at times ; 



38 



BY THE FIRESIDE. 



The place is silent and aware ; 
It lias had its scenes, its joys and 
crimes, 
But that is its own affair. 



My perfect wife, my Leonor, 
O heart, my owu ! O eyes, mine 
too ! 
Whom else could I dare look back- 
ward for. 
With whom beside should I dare 
pursue 
The path gray heads abhor ? 

XXII. 

For it leads to a crag's sheer edge with 
them ; 
Youth, tlowery all the way, there 
stops — 
Not they ; age threatens and they con- 
temn, 
Till they reach the gulf wherein 
youth drops. 
One inch from our life's safe hem 1 

XXIII. 

With me, youth led ... I will speak 
now. 
No longer watch you as you sit 
Reading by firelight, that great brow 
And the spirit-small hand propping 
it. 
Mutely my heart knows how — 

XXIV. 

When, if I think but deep enough. 
You are wont to answer, prompt as 
rhyme ; 
And you, too, find without rebuff 
Response your soul seeks many a 
time. 
Piercing its fine flesh-stuff. 



My own, confirm me ! If I tread 
This path back, is it not in pride 

To think how little I dreamed it led 
To an age so blest that, by its side. 

Youth seems the waste instead ? 

xxvr. 
My own, see where the years con- 
duct ! 
At first, 'twas something our two 
souls 



Should mix as mists do ; each is 

sucked 
In each now : on, the new stieam 

rolls. 
Whatever rocks obstruct. 

xxvn. 
Think, when our one soul under- 
stands 
The great Word which makes all 
things new. 
When earth breaks up and heaver, 
expands. 
How will the change strike me and 
you 
In the house not made with hands ? 

XXVIII. 

Oh ! I must feel your brain prompt 
mine, 

Your heart anticipate my heart. 
You must be just before, in fine. 

See and make me see, for your part. 
New depths of the divine! 



But who could have expected this 
When we two drew together first 

Just for the obvious luunan bliss, 
To satisfy life's daily thirst 

With a thing men seldom miss ? 



Come back with me to the first of 
all. 

Let us lean and love it over again, 
Let us now forget and ijow recall. 

Break the rosary in a pearly rain, 
And gather what we let fall ! 

XXXI. 

What did I say?— that a small bird 
sings 
All day long, save when a brown 
pair 
Of hawks from the wood float with 
wide wings 
Strained to a bell : 'gainst noonday 
glare 
You count the streaks and rings. 

XXXII. 

But at afternoon or almost eve 
'Tis better; then the silence grows 

To that degree, you half believe 
It must get rid of what it knows, 

Its bosom does so heave. 



BY THE FIRKSfDE. 



39 



XXXIII. 

Hither we walked then, side by side, 
Arm in arm and cheek to cheek, 

And still I qnestioned or replied, 
While my heart, convulsed to really 
speak, 

Lay choking in its pride. 

XXXIV. 

Silent the crumhling bridge we cross, 
And pity and praise the chapel 
sweet. 
And care about the fresco's loss. 
And wish for our souls a like re- 
treat. 
And wonder at the moss. 



XXXV. 

stoop and kneel on the settle under. 
Look through the window's grated 
square : 
Nothing to see ! For fear of plunder, 
The cross is down and the altar 
bare. 
As if thieves don't fear thunder. 



XXXVI. 

We stoop and look in through the 
grate. 
See the little porch and rustic door. 
Read duly the dead builder's date ; 
Then cross the bridge that we 
crossed before. 
Take the path again — but wait ! 

XXXVII. 

Oh moment one and infinite ! 
The water slips o'er stock and 
stone ; 
The West is tender, hardly bright : 
How gray at once is the evening 
grown — 
One star, its chrysolite ! 



XXXVIII. 

We two stood there with never a 
third, 
But each by each, as each knew 
well : 
The sights we saw and the sounds we 
heard. 
The lights and the shades made up 
a spell 
Till the trouble grew and stirred. 



XXXIX. 

Oh, the little more, and how much it 
is! 
And the little less, and what worlds 
away ! 
How a sound shall quicken content 
to bliss. 
Or a breath suspend the blood's 
best play. 
And life be a proof of this ! 



Had she willed it, still had stood the 
screen 
So slight, so sure, 'twixt my love 
and her : 

I could fix her face with a guard be- 
tween. 
And find her soul as when friends 
confer, 

Friends — lovers that might have 
been. 

XLI. 

For my heart had a touch of the wood- 
land time. 
Wanting to sleep now over its best. 
Shake the whole tree in the summer- 
prime. 
But bring to the last leaf no such 
test! 
" Hold the last fast ! " runs the 
rhyme. 



For a chance to make your little 
uuich. 
To gain a lover and lose a friend, 
Ventni'e the tree and a myriad such. 
When nothing you mar but the year 
can mend : 
But a last leaf — fear to touch ! 

XLIII. 

Yet should it unfasten itself and fall 
Eddying down till it find your face 
At some slight wind — best chance of 
all! 
Be your heart henceforth its dwell- 
ing-place 
You trembled to forestall ! 

XLIV. 

Worth how well, those dark gray 
eyes, 
That hair so dark and dear, how 
worth 



40 



ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. 



That a man should strive and aj:;onize, 

And taste a veriest hell on earth 
For the hope of such a prize ! 

XLV. 

You might have turned and tried a 
man. 
Set him a space to weary and wear, 
And prove which suited more your 
]ilan, 
His best of hope or his worst de- 
spair, 
Yet end as he began. 

XLVI. 

But you spared me this, like the heart 
you are, 
And filled my empty heart at a 
word. 
If two lives join, there is oft a scar. 
They are one and one, with a shad- 
owy third ; 
One near one is too far. 

XLVII. 

A moment after, and hands unseen 
Were hanging the night around us 
fast; 
But we knew that a bar \vas broken 
between 
Life and life: we were mixed at last 
In spite of the mortal screen. 

XLVIII. 

The forests had done it ; there they 
stood ; 
"We caught for a moment the pow- 
ers at play : 
They had mingled us so, for once and 
good. 
Their work was done — we might 
go or stay, 
They relajised to their ancient mood. 

XLIX. 

How the world is made for each of us ! 

How all we perceive and know in it 
Tends to some moment's product 
thus. 

When a soul declares itself — to wit. 
By its fruit, the thing it does ! 



Be hate that fruit, or love that fruit, 
It forwards the general deed of 
man, 



And each of the Many helps to recruit 
The life of the race by a general 
plan ; 
Each living his own, to boot. 



I am named and known by that mc 
meat's feat ; 
There took ray station and degree ; 
So grew my own small life com« 
plete. 
As nature obtained her best of me — > 
One born to love you, sweet ! 



And to watch you sink bj' the fireside 
now 
Back again, as you mutely sit 
Musing by fire-light, that great brow 
And the spirit-small hand propping 
it. 
Yonder, my heart knows how ! 



So, earth has gained by one man the 
more. 
And the gain of earth must be 
heaven's gain too ; 
And the whole is well worth think- 
ing o'er 
When autumn comes : which I 
mean to do 
One day, as I said before. 



ANY WIFE TO ANY HUS- 
BAND. 



My love, this is the bitterest, that 

thou — 
Who art all truth, and who dost love 

me now 
As thine eyes say, as thy voice 

breaks to say — 
Shouldst love so truly, and couldst 

love me still 
A whole long life through, had but 

love its will. 
Would death, that leads me from 

thee, brook delay. 



ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. 



41 



I have but to be by thee, and thy hand 
Will never let mine go, nor heart 

withstand 
The beating of my heart to reach 

its place. 
When shall I look for thee and feel 

thee gone ? 
When cry for the old comfort and 

find none ? 
Never, I know ! Thy soul is in thy 

face. 



Oh, I should fade — 'tis willed so! 
Might I save. 

Gladly I would, whatever beauty 
gave 
Jo J' to thy sense, for that was pre- 
cious too. 

It is not to be granted. But the soul 

Whence the love comes, all ravage 
leaves that whole ; 
Vainly the flesh fades ; soul makes 
all things new. 

IV. 

It would not be because my eye grew 

dim 
Thou couldst not find the love there, 

thanks to Him 
Who never is dishonored in the 

spark 
He gave ns from his fire of fires, and 

bade 
Remember whence it sprang, nor be 

afraid 
While that burns on, though all the 

rest grow dark. 

V. 

So, how thou wouldst be perfect, 
white and clean 

Outside as inside, soul and soul's de- 
mesne 
Alike, this body given to show it 
by ! 

Oh, three-parts through the worst of 
life's abyss, 

What plaudits from the next world 
after this, 
Couldst thou repeat a stroke and 
gain the sky ! 



And is it not the bitterer to think 
That, disengage our hands and thou 
wilt sink 



Although thy love was love in very 
deed ? 
I know that nature ! Pass a festive 

day, 
Thou dost not throw its relic-flower 
away. 
Nor bid its music's loitering ech( 
speed. 



Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie 

where it fell ; 
If old things remain old things all is 

well. 
For thou art grateful as becomes 

man best : 
And hadst thou only heard me play 

one tune. 
Or viewed me from a window, not so 

soon 
With thee would such things fade 

as with the rest. 

VIII. 

I seem to see ! We meet and part ; 

'tis brief ; 
The book I opened keeps a folded 

leaf, 
The very chair I sat on, breaks the 

rank ; 
That is a portrait of me on the wall — 
Three lines, my face comes at so 

slight a call : 
And for all this, one little hour to 

thank ! 



But now, because the hour through 
years was fixed. 

Because our inmost beings met and 
mixed, 
Because thou once hast loved me — 
wilt thou dare 

Say to tliy soul and Who may list be- 
side, 

" Therefore she is immortally my 
bride ; 
Chance cannot change my love, nor 
time impair. 



" So, what if in the dusk of life that's 
left, 

I, a tired traveller of iny sun bereft. 
Look from my path when, mimick- 
ing the same. 

The fire-fly glimpses past me, come 
and gone ? 



42 



ANY WIFI-: rO ANY HUSBAND. 



- Wliere was it till the sunset ? where 

anon 
It will be at the sunrise ! What's 
to blame? " 



Is it so helpful to thee? Canst thou 

take 
The niiniic up, nor, for the true thing's 

sake, 
Put gently by such efforts at a beam? 
Is tlu- reniainiler of the way so long, 
Thou neeil'st the little solace, thou 

the strong? 
Watch out thy watch, let weak ones 

doze and dream. 



— Ah, but the fresher faces! "Is it 

true," 
Thou'lt ask, " some eyes arc beautiful 

and new ? 
Some hair, — how can one choose 

but grasp such wealth ? 
And if a man would press his lips to 

lips 
Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cu]) 

there slips 
The dewdrop out of, must it be by 

stealth ? 



" It cannot change the love still kept 

for her. 
More than if such a picture I i>refcr 
Passing a day with, to a room's bare 

side : 
The painted form takes nothing she 

possessed. 
Yet, wliile the Titian's Venus lies at 

rest, 
A man looks. Once more, what ia 

there to chide?" 



XIV. 

So must I see, from where I sit and 

watch, 
^ly own self sell m3-self, my hand 

attach 
Its warrant to the very thefts from 

nu! — 
Thy singleness of soul that made me 

proml. 
Thy purity of heart I loved aloud. 
Thy man's-truth I was bold to bid 

God see 1 



XV. 

Love so, then, if thou wilt ! Give all 

thou canst 
Away to the new faces — disen- 

tranced, 
(Say it and think it) obdurate no 

more. 
Re-issue looks and words from the old 

mint, 
Pass them afresh, no matter whose 

the print. 
Imago, and superscription once they 

bore ! 



Re-coin thyself, and give it them to 

spend, — 
It all comes to the same thing at tlit 

end, 
Since mine thou wast, mine art, 

and mine shalt be, 
Faithful or faithless : sealing up the 

sum 
Or lavish of my treasure, tliou must 

come 
Back to the heart's place here I 

keep for thee 1 



XVII. 

Only, why should it be with stain at 

all? 
Why nmst I, 'twixt the leaves of 

<"oronal, 
* Put any kiss of pardon on thy 

brow ? 
Why need the other women know so 

much. 
And talk together, " Such the look 

atul such 
The smile he used to love with, then 

as now ! " 



XVIII. 

Might I die last and show thee! 

Should I find 
Such hardshiiw in the few years left 

behind, 
If free to take and light my lamp, 

and go 
Into thy tomb, and shut the door and 

sit. 
Seeing thv face on those four sides of 

it 
The l)etter that they are so blankj-l 

know 1 



IN A YEAR. 



43 



XIX. 

Wliy, time was what I wanted, to turn 

o'er 
^Vithin my raind each look, get more 

and more 
By heart each word, too much to 

learn at first ; 
And join thee all the fitter for the 

pause 
Neath tlie low door-way's lintel 

That were cause 
For lingering, though thou calledst, 

if I durst ! 



And yet thou art the nobler of us 

two : 
What dare I dream of, that thou canst 

not do, 
Outstrijiping my ten small steps 

with one stride ? 
I'll saj' then, here's a trial and a 

task ; 
Is it to bear? — if easy, I'll not 

ask : 
Though love fail, I can trust on in 

thy pride. 

XXI. 

Pride ? — when those eyes forestall 

the life behind 
The death I have to go through ! — 

when r find, 
Now that I want thy help most, all 

of tlitu; ! 
What did I fear ? Thy love shall hold 

nie fast 
Until the little minute's sleep is 

past 
And I wake saved. — And yet it 

will not b» I 



IN A YEAR. 



Never any more. 

While I live. 
Need I hope to see his face 

As before. 
Once his love grown chill, 

Mine may strive : 
Bitterly wci re-embrace, 

Single still. 



Was it something said, 

Something done, 
Vexed him ? was it touch of hand, 

Turn of head ? 
Strange ! that very way 

Love begun : 
I as little understand 

Love's decay. 



When I sewed or drew, 

I recall 
How he looked as if I sung, 

— Sweetly too. 
If I sjioke a word, 

First of all 
Up his cheek the color sprung, 

Then he lieard. 

IV. 

Sitting by my side. 

At my feet. 
So he breathed but air I breathed. 

Satisfied ! 
I, too, at love's brim 

Touched the sweet : 
I would die if death bequeathed 

Sweet to him. 



v. 

" Speak, I love thee best ! " 

He exclaimed : 
" Let thy love my own foretell I " 

I confessed ; 
" Clasp my heart on thine 

Now unhlamed. 
Since upon thy stml as well 

Hangeth mine ! " 



Was it wrong to own. 

Being truth ? 
Why should all the giving prove 

His alone ? 
I had wealth and ea.se. 

Beauty, youth : 
Since my lover gave me love, 

I gave these 



That was all I meant, 

— To be just. 
And the passion I had raised, 

To content. 



44 



SONG FROM "JAMKS LEE:' 



Since he chose to change 

Gold for dust, 
If I gave hiui what he praised 

Was it strange ? 

VIII. 

NV'ould he loved me yet, 

On and on, 
While I found some way undreamed 

— Paid my debt ! 
Gave more lifi; and more, 

Till all gone, 
He should smile " She never seemed 

Mine before. 



" What, she felt the while. 

Must I think ? 
Love's so different with us men ! " 

He should smile : 
" Dying for my sake — 

White and pink ! 
Can't we touch these bubbles then 

But they break?" 



Dear, the pang is brief, 

Do thy part, 
Have thy pleasure ! How perplexed 

Grows belief ! 
Well, this cold clay clod 

Was man's heart : 
Crumble it, and what comes next ? 

Is it God ? 



SONG FROM "JAMES LEE." 



Oir, good gigantic smile o' the brown 
old earth. 
This autumn morning ! How he 
sets his bones 

To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out 
knees and feet 

For the ripph; to run over in its mirth : 
Listening the while, where on the 
heap of stones 

The white breast of the sea-lark twit- 
ters sweet. 

II. 
That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, 
true ; 
Such is life's trial, as old earth 
smiles and knows. 



If you lovful only what were worth 

your love, 
Love were clear gain, and wholly well 

for you. 
Make the low nature better by your 

throes 1 
Give earth yourself, go up for gain 

above ! 



A WOMAN'S LAST WORD. 



Let's contend no more, Love, 

Strive nor weep : 
All be as before. Love, 

— Only sleep ! 



What so wild as words are ? 

I and thou 
111 (l('l>ato, as birds are, 

Hawk on bough ! 



See the (Tcature stalking 
While we s])cak ! 

Hush and hide the talking, 
Cheek on cheek. 



What so false as truth is. 

False to thee ? 
Where the serpent's tooth is, 

Shun the tree — 



Where the apple reddens, 

Never pry — 
Lest we lose our Edeus, 

Eve and I. 



Be a god, and hold me 
AVith a charm ! 

Be a man, and fold me 
With thine arm I 



Teach me, only teach. Love 1 

As I ought 
I will speak thv speech. Love, 

Think thy thought — 



WOMEN AND ROSES. 



4.') 



vin. 
Meet, if thou riHjuire it, 

Both deiuamls, 
Laying Hesh and spirit 

In thy hands. 



That shall be to-morrow, 

Not to-night : 
I must hury sorrow 

Out of sight : 



— Must a little weep, Love, 

(Foolish njc !) 
And so fall asleep, Love, 

Loved by thee. 



MEETING AT NIGHT. 



The gray sea and the long black land; 
And the yellow half-moon large and 

low; 
And the startled little waves that 

leap 
In fiery ringlets from their sleep, 
As I gain the cove with pushing prow, 
And quench its speed i' the slushy 

sand. 

II. 
Then a mile of warm sea-scented 

beach ; 
Three fields to cross till a farm ap- 

Iiears ; 
A tap at the pane, the quick sharji 

scratch 
And blue spurt of a lighted match, 
And a voice less loud, through joys 

and fears, 
Than the two hearts beating each to 

each 1 



PARTING AT MORNING. 

Round the cape of a sudden came the 
sea, 

And the sun looked over the moun- 
tain's rim : 

,Vnd straight was a path of gold for 
him. 

And the need of a world of men for 
me. 



WOMEN AND ROSES. 



I nuEAM of a red-rose tree. 
And which of its roses three 
Is the dearest rose to me ? 



Round and round, like a dance o 

snow 
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, 

go 
Floating the wonuiu faded for ages, 
Sculptured in stone, on the poet's 

pages. 
Then follow women fresh and gay. 
Living and loving and loved to-day. 
Last, in the rear, flee the multitude 

of maidens, 
Beauties yet unborn. And all, to one 

cadence. 
They circle their rose on my rose-tree- 



Dear rose, thy term is reached, 
Thy leaf hangs lodsc and bleached : 
Bees pass it unimpeachcd. 



Stay, then, stoop, since I cannot 
climb, 

You, great shapes of the antique time, 

IIow shall I fix you, fire you, freeze 
you, 

Break my heart at your feet to please 
you ? 

Oh, to possess and be possessed ! 

Hearts that beat 'neath each pallid 
breast ! 

Once but of love, the poesy, the pas- 
sion, 

Drink but once and die!— In vain, 
the same fashion. 

They circle their rose on my rose-tresr 



Dear rose, thy joy's undimmed ; 

Thy cup is ru])y-rimmed, 

Tliy cup's heart nectar-brimmed. 



Deep, as drops from a statue's plinth 
The bee sucked in by the hyacinth. 
So will I bury me while burning, 
CJuench like him at a plunge my 
yearning, 



46 



MISCONCEPTIONS. 



Eyes in your eyes, lips on your lijis ! 
Fold me fast where the cincture slips, 
Prison all my soul in eternities of 

pleasure, 
Girdle me for once! But no — the 

old measure, 
They circle their rose on my rose-tree. 



Dear rose without a thorn, 
Thy bud's the babe unborn : 
First streak of a new morn. 



Wings, lend wings for the cold, the 
clear ! 

What is far conquers what is near. 

Roses will bloom nor want behold- 
ers, 

Sprung from the dust where our flesh 
moulders. 

What shall arrive with the cycle's 
cliange ? 

A novel grace and a beauty strange. 

I will make an Eve, be the Artist that 
began her. 

Shaped her to his mind ! — Alas ! in 
like manner 

They circle their rose on my rose-tree. 



MISCONCEPTIONS. 



This is a spray the bird clung to, 

Making it blossom with pleasure. 
Ere the high tree-top she sprung to. 
Fit for her nest and her treasure. 
Oh, what a hope beyond measure 
Was the poor spray's, which the fly- 
ing feet hung to, — 
Bo to be singled out, built in, and sung 
to! 



That is a heart the queen leant on, 

Thrilled in a minute erratic, 
Ere the true bosom she bent on, 
Meet for love's regal dalmatic. 
Oh, what a fancy ecstatic 
Was the poor heart's, ere the wan- 
derer went on, — 
Love to be saved for it, proffered to, 
spent on 1 



A PRETTY WOMAN. 



That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers, 

And the blue eye 

Dear and dewy, 
And that infantine fresh air of hers 1 



To think men cannot take you, Sweet 

And infold you, 

Ay, and hold you, 
And so keep you what they make 
you, Sweet ! 



You like us for a glance, you know — 

For a word's sake 

Or a sword's sake : 
All's the same, whate'er the chance, 
j'ou know. 

IV. 

And in turn we make you ours, we 
say — 
You and youth too, 
Eyes and mouth too. 
All the face composed of flowers, we 
say. 

V. 

All's our own, to make the most of, 
Sweet — 

Sing and say for, 

Watch and pray for, 
Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet ! 



But for loving, why, you would not, 
Sweet, 
Though we prayed you, 
Paid you, brayed you 
In a mortar — for you could not, 
Sweet ! 

VII. 

So, we leave the sweet face fondly 
there : 
Be its beauty 
Its sole duty ! 
Let all hope of grace beyond, lie 
there ! 



And while the face lies quiet there, 

Who shall wonder 

That I ponder 
A conc'lusion ? I will try it there. 



A LIGHT WOMAN. 



47 



As, — why must one, for the love fore- 
gone, 
Scout mere liking ? 
Thunder-striking 
Earth, — the heaven, we looked above 
for, gone ! 



Why, with beauty, needs there 
money be, 

Love with liking? 

Crush the fly-king 
In his gauze, because no honey-bee ? 



May not liking be so simple-sweet. 

If love grew there 

'Twould undo there 
All that breaks the cheek to dimples 
sweet ? 



Is the creature too imperfect, say ? 

"Would you mend it. 

And so end it ? 
Since not all addition perfects aye I 



Or is it of its kind, perhaps, 

Just perfection — 

Whence, rejection 
Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps ? 



XIV. 

Shall we burn uij, tread that face at 
once 
Into tinder, 
And so hinder 
Sparks from kindling all the place at 
once? 



Or else kiss away one's soul on her ? 

Your love fancies ! 

— A sick man sees 
Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her ! 



Thus the craftsman thinks to grace 
the rose, — 

Plucks a mould-flower 

For his gold flower, 
Uses fine things that efface the rose : 



XVII. 

Rosy rubies make its cup more rose, 
Precious metals 
Ape the petals, — 
Last, some old king locks it up, mo- 
rose ! 

xvni. 
Then how grace a rose ? I know a 
way ! 
Leave it, rather. 
Must you gather ? 
Smell, kiss, wear it — at last, throw 
away ! 



A LIGHT WOMAN. 



So far as our story approaches the end, 
Which do you pity the most of us 
three ? — 
My friend, or the mistress of my 
friend 
With her wanton eyes, or me ? 



My friend was already too good to lose. 
And seemed in the way of improve- 
ment yet. 
When slie crossed his path with her 
hunting-noose. 
And over him drew her net. 



When I saw him tangled in her toils, 
A shame, said I, if she adds just 
him 

To her nine and ninety other spoils, 
The hundredth for a whim ! 



And before my friend be wholly hers, 
How easy to prove to him, I said, 

An eagle's the game her pride pre« 
fers, 
Though she snaps at a wren instead ! 



So, I gave her eyes my own eyes t« 
take. 
My hand sought hers as in earnest 
need. 
And round she turned for my noble 
sake. 
And gave me herself indeed. 



48 



LOVE JN A LIFE. 



The eagle am I, with my fame in tl)e 
world, 
The wren is he, with his maiden 
face. 
— Yon look away and your lip is 
curled ? 
Patience, a moment's space ! 



For see, my friend goes shaking and 
white ; 
He eyes me as the basilisk : 
I have turned, it appears, his day to 
night, 
Eclipsing his sun's disk. 



And I did it, he thinks, as a very 
thief : 
" Though I love her — that, he com- 
prehends — 
One should master one's passions 
(love, in chief). 
And be loyal to one's friends ! " 



And she, — she lies in my hand as 
tame 

As a pear late basking over a wall ; 
Just a touch to try, and off it came ; 

'Tis mine, — can I let it fall ? 



With no mind to eat it, that's the 
worst ! 
"Were it thrown in the road, would 
the case assist ? 
'Twas quenching a dozen blue-flies' 
thirst 
When I gave its stalk a twist. 

XI. 

A-nd I, — what I seem to my friend, 
you see ; 
What I soon sliall seem to his love, 
you guess : 
What I seem to myself, do you ask of 
me? 
No hero, I confess. 

xir. 
'Tis an awkward thing to play with 
souls, 
And matter enough to save one's 
own : 



Yet think of my friend, and the burn- 
ing coals 
He played with for bits of stone ! 



One likes to show the truth for the 
truth ; 
That the woman was light is very 
true : 
But suppose she saj's, — Never mind 
that youth ! 
What wrong have I done to you? 



Well, anyhow, here the story stays, 
So far at least as I understand ; 

And, Robert Browning, you writer of 
plays. 
Here's a subject made to your hand 1 



LOVE IN A LIFE. 



Room after room, 

I hunt the house through 

We inhabit together. 

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou 
shalt find her — 

Next time, herself ! —not the trouble 
behind her 

Left in the curtain, the coucli'.3 per- 
fume ! 

As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath 
blossomed anew : 

Yon looking-glass gleamed at the 
wave of her feather. 



Yet the day wears. 

And door succeeds door ; 

I try the fresh fortune — 

Range the wide house from the wing 

to the centre. 
Still the same chance ! she goes out as 

I enter. 
Spend my whole day in the quest, — 

who cares ? 
But 'tis twilight, you see, — with such 

suites to exj^lore, 
Such closets to search, such alcoves 

to importune 1 



Tlir: LA BORA TOR Y. 



49 



LIFE IX A LOVE. 

Escape ine? 
Nevei- — 

Beloved ! 

While I am I, and jon are yon, 

So long as the world contains ns both, 

Me tTie loving and you the loth, 
While the one eludes, must the other 

pursue. 
My life is a fault at last, I fear : 
It seems too much like a fate, in- 
deed ! 
Though I do my best I shall scarce 
succeed. 
But what if I fail of my purpose here? 
It is but to keep the nerves at strain, 
To dry one's ej'es and laugh at a 
fail. 
And bafHed, get up and begin again, — 
So the chase takes up one's life, 
that's all. 
"While, look but once from your far- 
thest bound 
At me so deep in the dust and dark, 
No sooner the old hope goes to grouncl 
Than a new one, straight to the self- 
same mark, 
I shape me — 
Ever 
Removed ! 



THE LABORATORY. 

ANCIEN REGIME. 



Now that I, tying thy glass mask 

tightly. 
May gaze through these faint smokes 

curling whitely. 
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil 's- 

smithy — 
Which is the poison to poison her, 

prithee ? 



He is with her, and they know that I 

know 
Where they are, what they do : they 

believe my tears How 
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me 

fled to the drear 
Empty church, to pray God in, for 

them ! — I am here. 



Grind away, moisten and mash up 

thy ]iaste, 
Pound at thy powder, — I am not in 

haste ! 
Better sit thus and observe thy 

strange things, 
Thau go where men wait me, and 

dance at the King's. 

IV. 

That in the mortar — j'ou call it a 

gum ? 
Ah, the brave tree whence such gold 

oozings come ! 
And yonder soft vial, the exquisite 

blue, 
Sure to taste sweetly, — is that poison 

too? 



Had I but all of them, thee and thy 
treasures, 

W^hat a wild crowd of invisible pleas- 
ures ! 

To carry pure death in an earring, a 
casket, 

A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree bas- 
ket 1 

VI. 

Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge 

to give. 
And Pauline should have just thirty 

minutes to live ! 
But to light a pastile, and Elise with 

her head 
AntI her lireast and her arms and her 

hands, should drop dead ! 



Quick — is it finished? The color's 

too grim ! 
Why not soft like the vial's, enticing 

and dim ? 
Let it brighten her drink, let her turn 

it and stir. 
And try it and taste, ere she fix and 

prefer ! 

VIII. 

What a drop ! She's not little, no 

minion like me ! 
That's why slie insnared him : this 

never will free 
The soul from those masculine eyes, 

— say, " No ! " 
To that pulse's magnificent come and 

go. 



50 



GOLD HAIR. 



For only last night, as they whispered, 

I brought 
My own eyes to bear on her so, that 

I thought 
Could I keep them one-half minute 

fixed, she would fall 
Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does 

it all I 



Not that I bid you spare her the pain; 
Let death be felt and the jn-oof re- 

naain : 
Brand, burn up, bite into its grace — 
He is sure to remember her dying 

face ! 



Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, 
be not morose ; 

It kills her, and this prevents seeing 
it close : 

The delicate droplet, my whole for- 
tune's fee ! 

If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt 
me? 

XII. 

Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold 

to your fill. 
You may kiss me, old man, on my 

mouth if you will ! 
But bi'ush this dust off me, lest horror 

it brings 
Ere I know it — next moment I dance 

at the King's ! 



GOLD HAIR: 

A STORY OF PORNIC. 



Oh, the beautiful girl, too white, 
Who lived at Pornic down by the 
sea, 
Just where the sea and the Loire 
unite ! 
And a boasted name in Brittany 
She bore, which I will not write. 



Too white, for the flower of life is 
red ; 
Her flesh was the soft seraphic 
screen 



Of a soul that is meant (her parents 

said) 
To just see earth, and hardly be 

seen, 
And blossom in heaven instead. 



Yet earth saw one thing, one how 
fair ! 
One grace that grew to its full on 
earth : 
Smiles might be sparse on her cheek 
so spare. 
And her waist want half a girdle's 
girth, 
But she had her great gold hair. 



Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss, 
Freshness and fragrance — floods of 
it, too ! 
Gold, did I saj'? Nay, gold's mere 
dross : 
Here, Life smiled, " Think what I 
meant to do ! " 
And Love sighed, " Fancy my loss ! ' 

v. 
So, when she died, it was scarce more 
strange 
Than that, when some delicate 
evening dies. 
And you follow its spent sun's pallid 
range. 
There's a shoot of color startles the 
skies 
With sudden, violent change,— 

VI. 

That, while the breath was nearly to 
seek, 
As they put the little cross to her 
lips. 
She changed ; a spot came out on her 
cheek, 
A spark from her eye in mid-eclipse. 
And she broke forth, " I must speak ! 



" Not my hair ! " made the girl her 
moan — 
" All the rest is gone or to go ; 
But the last, last grace, my all, my 
own. 
Let it stay in the grave, that the 
ghosts may know ! 
Leave my poor gold hair alone 1 " 



GOLD HAIR. 



51 



vni. 
The passion thus vented, dead lay she: 
Her parents sobbed their worst on 
that, 
All friends joined in, nor observed 
degree : 
For indeed the hair was to wonder 
at, 
As it spread — not flowing free, 



But curled around her brow, like a 
crown. 
And coiled beside her cheeks, like a 
cap, 
And calmed about her neck — ay, 
down 
To her breast, pressed flat, without 
a gap 
1' the gold, it reached her gown. 



All kissed that face, like a silver wedge 
'Mid the yellow wealth, nor dis- 
turbed its hair : 
E'en the priest allowed death's jDrivi- 
lege. 
As he planted the crvicifix with care 
On her breast, 'twixt edge and edge. 



And thus was she buried, inviolate 
Of body and soul, in the very space 

By the altar ; keejiing saintly state 
In Pornic church, for her pride of 
race. 

Pure life and piteous fate. 



And in after-time would your fresh 
tear fall. 
Though your mouth might twitch 
with a dubious smile, 
As they told you of gold both robe 
and pall, 
How she prayed them leave it alone 
a while. 
So it never was touched at all. 



Years flew; this legend grew at last 
The life of the lady; all she had 
done. 
All been, in the memories fading fast 
Of lover and friend, was summed in 
one 
Sentence survivors passed : 



To wit, she was meant for heaven, 
not earth ; 
Had turned an angel before the 
time : 
Yet, since she was mortal, in such 
dearth 
Of frailty, all you could count a 
crime 
Was — she knew her gold hair's worth. 



At little pleasant Pornic church, 
It chanced, the pavement wanted 
repair. 

Was taken to pieces: left in the lurch, 
A certain sacred space laj' bare, 

And the boys began research. 



'Twas the space where our sires would 
lay a saint, 
A benefactor, — a bishop, suppose, 
A baron with armor-adornments 
quaint, 
Dame with chased ring and jewelled 
rose. 
Things sanctity saves from taint ; 



So we come to find them in after-daya 
When the corpse is presumed to 
have done with gauds 
Of use to the living, in many ways : 
For the boys get pelf, and the town 
ajiplauds, 
And the church deserves the praise. 

XVIII. 

They grubbed with a will : and at 
length — cor 
Hvmamim, pectova cceca, and the 
rest ! — 
They found — no gaud they were pry. 
ing for, 
No ring, no rose, but — who would 
have guessed ? — 
A double Louis-d'or ! 

xis. 
Here was a case for the Driest : be 
heard, 
Marked, inwardly digested, laid 



52 



GOLD HAIR. 



Finger on nose, smiled, " A little bird 
Chirps in my ear : " then, " Bring 
a spade, 
Dig deeper ! " — he gave the word. 



And lo, -when they came to the coffin- 
lid, 
Or rotten planks which composed it 
once. 
Why, there lay the girl's skull wedged 
amid 
A mint of money, it served for tlie 
nonce 
To hold in its hair-heaps hid ! 

XXI. 

Hid there? "Why? Could the girl 
be wont 
(She the stainless soul) to treasure 
up 
Money, earth's trash and heaven s 
affront? 
Had a spider found out the com- 
munion-cup. 
Was a toad in the christening-font ? 

XXII. 

Truth is truth : too true it was. 
Gold ! She hoarded and hugged it 
tirst, 
Longed for it, leaned o'er it, loved it 
— alas — 
Till the humor grew to a head and 
burst. 
And she cried, at the final pass, — 



xxin. 
" Talk not of God, my heart is stone ! 
Nor lover nor friend — be gold for 
both 1 
Gold I lack ; and, ray all, my own. 
It shall hide in my hair. I scarce 
die loth 
If they let my hair alone ! " 



XXIV. 

Louis-d'ors, some six times five. 
And duly double, every piece. 
Now, do you see ? With the priest to 
shrive, 
With parents preventing her soul's 
release 
By kisses that kept alive, — 



With heaven's gold gaces about to 
ope. 
With friends' praise, gold-like, lin- 
gering still, 
An instinct had bidden the girl's hand 
grope 
For gold, the trne sort — "Gold in 
heaven, if you will ; 
But I keep earth's too, I hope." . 

XXVI. 

Enough ! The priest took the grave's 
grim yield : 
The parents, they eyed that price of 
sin 
As if thirty pieces lay revealed 

On the place to bury stnmgers in, 
The hideous Potter's Field. 

XXVII. 

But the priest bethought hiiu : 
" 'Milk that's spilt' 
— You know the adage! Watch 
and pray ! 
Saints tumble to earth with so slight a 
tilt ! 
It would build a new altar; that, 
we may ! " 
And the altar therewith was built. 

XXVIII. 

Why I deliver this horrible verse ? 
As the text of a sermon, which now 
I preach. 
Evil or good may be better or worse 
In the human heart, but the mix- 
ture of each 
Is a marvel and a curse. 

XXIX. 

The candid incline to surmise of late 
That the Christian faith may be 
false, I find ; 

For our Essays-and-Reviews' debate 
Begins to tell on the public mind. 

And Colenso's words have weight : 



I still, to suppose it true, for my part, 
See reasons and reasons ; this, to 
begin : 
'Tis the faith that launched point- 
blank her dart 
At the head of a lie — taught Origi- 
nal Sin, 
The Corruption of Man's Heart. 



THE STATUE AND THE BUST. 



58 



THE STATUE AND THE 
BUST. 

riiERE's a palare in Florence, the 
world knows well, 

A.nd a statue watches it from the 
square, 

A.nd this story of both do our towns- 
men tell. 

Ages ago, a lady there, 
At the farthest window facing the East 
Asked, " Who rides by with the royal 
air?" 

The bridesmaids' prattle around her 

ceased ; 
She leaned forth, one on either hand : 
They saw how the blush of the bride 

increased — 

They felt by its beats her heart ex- 
pand — 

As one at each ear and both in a 
breath 

Whispered, " The Great Duke Fer- 
dinand." 

That selfsame instant, underneath, 
The Duke rode past in his idle way, 
Empty and fine, like a swordless 
sheath. 

Gay he rode, with a friend as gay. 
Till he threw his head back — "Who 

is she ?" 
— " A bride the Riccardi brings home 

to-day." 

Hair in heaps l?.y he. vily 
Over a pale brow spirit-pure — 
Carved like the heart of the coal- 
black tree, 

Crisped like a war-steed's encolure — 
And vainly sought to dissemble her 

eyes 
Of the blackest black our eyes endure. 

And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise 
Filled the fine emjity sheath of a 

man, — 
The Duke grew straightway brave 

and wise. 

He looked at her, as a lover can . 
She looked at him, as one who awakes: 
The past was a sleep, and her life 
began. 



Now, love so ordered for both their 

sakes, 
A feast was held, that selfsame night. 
In the pile which the mighty shadow 

makes. 

(For Via Larga is three-parts light. 
But the palace overshadows one. 
Because of a crime which may God 
requite ! 

To Florence and God the wrong was 

done, 
Through the first republic's murder 

there 
By Cosimo and his cursed son.) 

The Duke (with the statue's face in 
the square) 

Turned, in the midst of his multi- 
tude. 

At the bright api^roach of the bridal 
pair. 

Face to face the lovers stood 
A single minute and no more, 
While the bridegroom bent as a man 
subdued — 

Bowed till his bonnet brushed the 
floor — 

For the Duke on the lady a kiss con- 
ferred. 

As the courtly custom was of yore. 

In a minute can lovers exchange a 

word ? 
If a word did pass, which I do net 

think. 
Only one out of the thousand heard. 

That was the bridegroom. At day's 

brink 
He and his bride were alone at last 
In a bed-chamber by a taper's blink. 

Calmly he said that her lot was cast. 
That the door she had passed was 

shut on her 
Till the final catafalque repassed. 

The world meanwhile, its noise and 

stir. 
Through a certain window facing the 

East, 
She could watch like a coinent's 

chronicler. 



54 



THE STATUE AND THE BUST. 



Since passing the door uiiglit lead to 

a feast, 
And a feast might lead to so much 

beside, 
He, of many evils, chose the least. 

" Freely I choose too," said the bride — 
" Your window and its world suffice," 
Eeplied the tongue, while the heart 
replied — 

" If I spend the night with that devil 

twice, 
May his window serve as my loop of 

hell 
Whence a damned soul looks on 

paradise ! 

" I fly to the Duke who loves me well, 
Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow 
Ere i count another ave-bell. 

" 'T is only the coat of a page to bor- 
row. 
And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim. 
And I save my soul — but not to-mor- 
row " — 

(She checked herself and her eye 

grew dim) 
" My father tarries to bless my state : 
I must keep it one day more for 

him. 

" Is one day more so long to wait ? 
Moreover the Duke rides past, I know ; 
We shall see each other, sure as fate." 

She turned on her side and slept. 

Just so ! 
So we resolve on a thing, and sleep : 
So did the lady, ages ago. 

That night tlie Duke said, "Dear or 

cheap 
^s the cost of this cup of bliss may 

prove 
To body or soul, I will drain it deep." 

And on the morrow, bold with love, 
He beckoned the bridegroom (close on 

call. 
As his duty bade, by the Duke's al- 
cove) 

And smiled, " 'Twas a very funeral, 
tour lady will think, this feast of 

ours, — 
A shame to efface, whate'er befall ! 



"What if we break from the Arnc 

bowers, 
And try if Petraja, cool and green, 
Cure last night's fault with this morn- 
ing's flowers? " 

The bridegroom, not a thought to be 

seen 
On his steady brow and quiet mouth. 
Said, "Too much favor for me sc 

mean! 

" But, alas! my ladj' leaves the South 
Each wind that comes from the Apen- 

nine 
Is a menace to her tender youth : 

" Nor a way exists, the wise opine. 
If she quits her palace twice this 

year, 
To avert the flower of life's decline. " 

Quoth the Duke, " A sage and a kind- 
ly fear. 
Moreover Petraja is cold this spring: 
Be our feast to-night as usual here! " 

And then to himself — " Which night 

shall bring 
Thy bride to her lover's embraces, 

fool — 
Or I am the fool, and thou art the 

king ! 

" Yet my passion must wait a night, 

nor cool — 
For to-night the envoy arrives from 

France 
Whose heart I unlock with thyself, 

my tool. 

" I need thee still and might miss per- 
chance. 
To-daj^ is not wholly lost, beside. 
With its hope of my lady's counte-i 
nance : 

"For I ride — what should I do but 

ride? 
And, passing her palace, if I list, 
May glance at its window — well be- 
tide ! " 

So said, so done: nor the lady missed 
One ray that broke from the ardent 

brow. 
Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit 

kissed. 



THE STATUE AND THE BUST. 



55 



Be sure that each renewed the vow, 
No morrow's sun should arise and set 
And leave them then as it left them 
now. 

But next day passed, and next day yet, 
With still fresh cause to wait one day 

more 
Ere each lea^ied over the parapet. 

And stil 1, as love's brief morning wore. 
With a gentle start, half smile, half 

sigh. 
They found love not as it seemed be- 
fore. 

Thej'^ thought it would work infalli- 
bly, 

But not in despite of heaven and 
earth : 

The rose would blow when the storm 
passed by. 

Meantime they could profit, in win- 
ter's dearth, 

By store of fruits that supplant the 
rose : 

The world and its waj's have a certain 
worth : 

And to press a point while these op- 
pose 
Were simple policy; better wait : 
We lose no friends and we gain no 
foes. 

Meantime, worse fates than a lover's 

fate. 
Who daily ma.y ride and pass and look 
Where his lady watches behind the 

grate ! 

And she — she watched the square 

like a book 
Holding one picture and only one. 
Which daily to find she undertook : 

When the picture was reached the 

book was done. 
And she turned from the picture at 

night to scheme 
Of tearing it out for herself next sun. 

So weeks grew months, years; gleam 

by gleam 
The glory dropped from their youth 

and love. 
And both perceived they had dreamed 

a dream ; 



Which hovered as dreams do, still 
above : 

But who can take a dream for a truth ? 

Oh, hide our eyes from the next re- 
move ! 

One day as the lady saw her youth 
Dei3art, and the silver thread that 

streaked 
Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's 

tooth, 

The brow so puckered, the chin so 

peaked, — 
And wondered who the woman was, 
Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked 

Fronting her silent in the glass — 
" Summon here," she suddenly said, 
" Before the rest of my old self pass, 

" Him, the Carver, a hand to aid. 
Who fashions the clay no love will 

change. 
And fixes a beauty never to fade. 

" Let Robbia's craft so apt and strange 
Arrest the remains of young and fair. 
And rivet them while the seasons 
range. 

" Make me a face on the window 

there. 
Waiting as ever, mute the while. 
My love to jjass below in the square ! 

" And let me think that it may beguile 
Dreary days which the dead must 

spend 
Down in their darkness under the 

aisle, 

" To say, ' What matters it at the end ? 
I did no more while my heart was 

warm 
Than does that image, my pale-faced 

friend.' 

" Where is the use of the lip's red 

charm. 
The heaven of hair, the pride of the 

brow. 
And the blood that blues the inside 

arm — 

" Unless we turn, as the soul knows 

how, 
The earthly gift to an end divine ? 
A lady of clay is as good, I trow." 



56 



THE STATUE AND THE BUST. 



But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine 
With tiowers and fruits which leaves 

inUice, 
Was set where now is the empty 

shrine — 

(And, leaning out of a bright blue 

space, 
As a ghost might lean from a chink of 

sky, 
The passionate pale lady's face — 

Eying ever, with earnest eye 
And quick-turned neck at its breath- 
less stretch, 
Some one who ever is passing by — ) 

The Duke had sighed like the simplest 

wretch 
In Florence, "Youth — my dream 

escapes ! 
Will its record stay ! " And he bade 

them fetch 

Some subtle moulder of brazen 

shapes — 
" Can the soul, the will, die out of a 

man 
Ere his body finds the grave that 

gapes ? 

" John of Douay shall effect my plan, 
Set me on horseback here aloft, 
Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, 

" In the very square I have crossed so 

oft: 
That men may admire, when future 

suns 
Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, 

" While the mouth and the brow stay 

brave in bronze — 
Admire and say, ' When he was alive 
How he would take his i>leasure 

once ! ' 

■' And it shall go hard but I contrive 
To listen the while, and laugh in my 

tomb 
At idleness which aspires to strive." 



So ! While these wait the trump of 

doom, 
Hinv do their spirits pass, I wonder. 
Nights and days in the narrow room? 



Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder 
Sviiat a gift life was, ages ago, 
Six steps out of the chapel yonder. 

Only they see not God, I know. 

Nor all that chivalry of his. 

The soldier-saints who, row on row. 

Burn upward each to his point of 
bliss — 

Since, the end of life being mani- 
fest. 

He had burned his way through the 
world to this. 

I hear you reproach, " But delay was 

best. 
For their end was a crime." — Oh! 

a crime will do 
As well, I reply, to serve for a test. 

As a virtue golden through and 

through, 
Sufficient to vindicate itself 
And prove its worth at a moment's 

view ! 

Must a game be played for the sake of 
pelf ? 

Where a button goes, 'twere an epi- 
gram 

To offer the stamp of the very Guelph. 

The true has no value beyond the 
sham : 

As well the counter as coin, I sub- 
mit. 

When your table's a hat, and your 
prize, a dram. 

Stake your counter as boldly every 

whit, 
Venture as warily, use the same 

skill. 
Do your best, whether winning or los-. 

ing it, 

If you choose to play ! — is my princi- 
ple. 
Let a man contend to the uttermost 
For his life's set prize, be it what it 
will ! 

The counter, our lovers staked, was 

lost 
As surely as if it were lawful coin : 
And thesin I impute to each frustrate 

ghost 



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. 



57 



Is, tlie unlit lamp and the unjjirt loin, 


Every vestige of the city, guessed 


Tliough the end in sight was a vice, I 


alone, 


say. 


Stock or stone — 


Ydii of the virtne (we issue join) 


Where a multitude of men breathed 


llow strive you ? De te, fabula ! 


joy and woe 




Long ago ; 




Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, 




dread of shame 




Struck them tame ; 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. 


And that glory and that shame alike, 




the gold 


I. 


Bought and sold. 


Where the quiet-colored end of even- 




ing smiles, 


IV. 


Miles and miles. 


Now, — the single little turret that 


On the solitary pastures where our 


remains 


sheep 


On the plains. 


Half-asleep 


By the caper overrooted, by the gourd 


Tinkle homeward through the twi- 


Overscored, 


light, stray or stoj^ 


While the patching houseleek's head 


As they croji — 


of blossom winks 


Was the site once of a city great and 


Through the chinks — 


gay 


Marks the basement whence a tower 


(So they say), 


in ancient time 


Of our country's very capital, its 


Sprang sublime. 


lirince, 


And a burning ring, all round, the 


Ages since, 


chariots traced 


Held liis court in, gathered councils, 


As they raced. 


wielding far 


And the monarch and his minions 


Peace or war. 


and his dames 


II. 


Viewed the games. 


Now, — the country does not even 


v. 


boast a tree. 


And I know — while thus the quiet- 


As you see. 


colored eve 


To distinguish slopes of verdure, cer- 


Smiles to leave 


tain rills 


To their folding, all our many tink- 


From the hills 


ling lieece 


Intersect and give a name to (else 


In such peace. 


they run 


And the slopes and rills in undistin- 


Into one), 


guished gray 


Where the domi, 1 and daring palace 


Melt away — 


shot its spires 


That a girl with eager eyes and yellow 


Up like fires 


hair 


O'lir the hundred-gated circuit of a 


Waits me there 


wall 


In the turret whence the charioteers 


Bounding all, 


caught soul 


Made of marble, men might march on 


For the goal. 


nor be pressed, 


When the king looked, where she 


Twelve abreast. 


looks now, breathless, dumb 




Till I come. 


III. 




And such plenty and perfection, see, 


VI. 


of grass 


But he looked upon the city, every side. 


Never was ! 


Far and wide, 


Such a cari^et as, this summer-time, 


All the mountains tojiped with tem- 


o'er-spreads 


ples, all the glades 


And embeds 


Colonnades, 



58 



TIME'S REVENGES. 



All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, 
— and then, 
All the men ! 
When I do come, she will speak not, 
she will stand, 
Either hand 
On my shoulder, give her eyes the 
first embrace 
Of my face, 
fire we rush, ere we extinguish sight 
and speech 
Each on each. 



In one year they sent a million fight- 
ers forth 
South and North, 
And they built their gods a brazen 
pillar high 
As the sky, 
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in 
full force — 
Gold, of course. 
O heart ! O blood that freezes, blood 
that burns ! 
Earth's returns 
For whole centuries of folly, noise and 
sin ! 
Shut them in, 
With their triumphs and their glories 
and the rest ! 
Love is best. 



TIME'S REVENGES. 

I've a Friend, over the sea ; 

I like him, but he loves me. 

It all grew out of the books I write ; 

They find such favor in his sight 

That he slaughters you with savage 
looks 

Because you don't admire my books. 

He does himself though, — and if some 
vein 

Were to snap to-night in this heavy 
brain. 

To-morrow month, if I lived to try, 

Round should I just turn quietly. 

Or out of the bedclothes stretch my 
hand 

Till I found him, come from his for- 
eign land 

To be my nurse in this poor place. 

And make my broth and wash my 
face 



And light my lire and, all the while, 
Bear with his old good-humored 

smile 
That I told him " Better have kept 

away 
Thau come and kill me, night and 

day, 
With, worse than fever throbs and 

shoots, 
The creaking of his clumsy boots." 
I am as sure that this he would do. 
As that Saint Paul's is striking two. 
And I think I rather . . . woe is me ! 

— Yes, rather should see him than 

not see, 
If lifting a hand would seat him there 
Before ine in the empty chair 
To-night, when mj' head aches indeed, 
And I can neither think nor read, 
Nor make these purple fingers hold 
The pen : this garret's freezing cold ! 

And I've a Lady — there he wakes 
The laughing fiend and prince of 

snakes 
Within me, at her name, to pray 
Fate send some creature in the way 
Of my love for her, to be down-torn, 
Upthrust and outward-borne, 
So I might prove myself that sea 
Of passion which I needs must be ! 
Call my thoughts false and my fancies 

quaint, 
And my style infirm and its figures 

faint. 
All the critics say, and more blame 

yet, 

And not one angry word you get. 
But, please you, wonder I would put 
My cheek beneath that lady's foot 
Rather than trample under mine 
The laurels of the Florentine, 
And you shall sei how the Devil 

spends 
A fire God gave for other ends ! 
I tell you, I stride up and down 
This garret, crowned with love's best 

crown, 
And feasted with love's perfect feast, 
To think I kill for her, at least. 
Body and soul and peace and fame, 
Alike youth's end and manhood's 

aim, 

— So is my spirit, as flesh with sin. 
Filled full, eaten out and in 

With the face of her, the eyes of her. 

The lips, the little chin, the stir 

Of shadnw round her mouth; and she 

— I'll tell you, — calmly would decree 



WARING. 



59 



That I should roast at a slow fire, 
If that would compass her desire 
And make her one whom they invite 
To the famous ball to-morrow night. 

There may be heaven ; there must be 

hell ; 
Meantime, there is our earth here — 

well! 



WARING. 



"What's become of Waring 
Since he gave us all the slip, 
Chose land-travel or seafaring, 
Boots and chest or staff and scrip. 
Rather than pace iip and down 
Anv longer London town ? 



"Who'd have guessed it from his lip 
Or his brow's accustomed bearing, 
On the night he thus took ship 
Or started landward ? — little caring 
For us, it seems, who supj^ed together 
(Friends of his too, I remember) 
And walked home through the merry 

weather 
The snowiest in all December. 
I left his arm that night myself 
For what's-his-name's, the new prose- 
poet 
Who wrote the book there on the 

shelf — 
How, forsooth, t^ts I to know it 
If Waring mcvsnt to glide away 
Like a ghost at break of day ? 
Never looked he half so gay ! 



He was prouder than the Devil : 
How he must have cursed our revel ! 
Ay, and many other meetings, 
Indoor visits, outdoor greetings 
As up and down he paced this Lon- 
don, 
With no work done, but great works 

undone. 
Where scarce twenty knew his name. 
Why not, then, have earlier spoken. 
Written, bustled? Who's to blame 
If your silence ke)3t unbroken ? 



" True, but there were sundry jot- 
tings, 

Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and 
blottings, 

Certain first steps were achieved 

Already which " — (is that your mean- 
ing?) 

" Had well borne out whoe'er believed 

In more to come ! " But wbo goes 
gleaning 

Hedge-side chan "^-blades, while lull- 
sheaved 

Stand cornfields by him ? Pride, o'er- 
weening 

Pride alone, puts forth such claims 

O'er the day's distinguished names. 



Meantime, how much I loved him, 

I find out now I've lost him. 

I who cared not if I moved him, 

Who could so carelessly accost him. 

Henceforth never shall get free 

Of his ghostly company. 

His eyes that just a little wink 

As deep I go into the merit 

Of this and that distinguished spirit — 

His cheeks' raised color, soon to sink. 

As long I dwell on some stupendous 

And tremendous (Heaven defend us!) 

Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous 

Demoniaco-seraphic 

Penman's latest piece of graphic. 

Nay, my very wrist grows warm 

With his dragging weight of arm. 

E'en so, swimmingly appears, 

Through one's after-supper musings. 

Some lost lady of old years 

With her beauteous vain endeavor 

And goodness unrepaid as ever; 

The face, accustomed to refusings. 

We, puppies that we were . . . Oh, 

never 
Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled 
Being aught like false, forsooth, to ? 
Telling aught but honest truth to ? 
What a sin, had we centupled 
Its possessor's grace and sweetness ! 
No ! she heard in its completeness 
Truth, for troth's a weighty matter, 
And, truth at issue, we can't flatter I 
Well, 'tis done with; she's exempt 
From damning us through such a 

sally ; 
And so she glides, as down a valley. 
Taking up with her contempt. 
Past our reach; and in, the flowers 
Shut her unregarded hours. 



fiO 



WAEING. 



Oh, could I have him back once 

more, 
This Waring, but one-half day more ! 
Back, with the quiet face of yore, 
So hungry for acknowledgment 
Like mine ! I'd fool him to his bent. 
Feed, should not he, to heart's con- 
tent ? 
I'd say, "to only have conceived, 
Planned your great works, apart from 

progress. 
Surpasses little works achieved ! " 
I'd lie so, I should be believed. 
I'd make such havoc of the claims 
Of the day's distinguished names 
To feast iiim with,' as feasts an ogress 
Her feverish sharp-toothed gold- 
crowned child ! 
Or as one feasts a creature rarely 
Captured here, unreconciled 
To capture ; and completely gives 
Its pettish humors license, barely 
Requiring that it lives. 



Ichabod, Ichabod, 
The glory is departed ! 
Travels Waring East away ? 
Who, of knowledge, by hearsay, 
Reports a man u])started 
Somewhere as a god. 
Hordes grown European-hearted, 
Millions of the wild made tame 
On a sudden at his fame ? 
In Vishnu-land what Avatar? 
Or who in Moscow, towards the Czar, 
M'ith the demurest of footfalls 
Over the Kremlin's pavement bright 
With serpentine and syenite. 
Steps, with five other generals 
That simultaneously take snuf¥. 
For each to have pretext enough 
And Kerchiefwise unfold his sash 
Whicli. sdftness' self, is yet the stuff 
To hold fast where a steel chain snaps. 
And leave the grand white neck no 

gash ? 
Waring in Moscow, to those rough 
Cold northern natures borne per- 
haps. 
Like the lambwhite maiden dear 
From the circle of mute kings 
Unable to repress the tear, 
Each as his scejJtre down he flings. 
To Dian's fame at Taurica, 
Where now a captive priestess, she 
alway 



Mingles her tender grave Hellenic 

speech 
M'ith theirs, tuned to the hailstone- 
beaten beach : 
As pours some pigeon, from the 

myrrhy lands 
Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scyth- 
ian strands 
Where breed the swallows, her melo- 
dious cry 
Amid their barbarous twitter ! 
In Russia ? Never ! Spain were 

fitter ! 
Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain 
That we and Waring meet again 
Now, while he turns down that cool 

narrow lane 
Into the blackness, out of grave Ma- 
drid 
All fire and shine, abrupt as when 

there's slid 
Its stiff gold blazing pall 
From some black coffin-lid. 
Or, best of all, 
I love to think 

The leaving us was just a feint ; 
Back here to London did he slink, 
And now works on without a wink 
Of sleep, and we are on the brink 
Of something great in fresco-paint : 
Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor, 
Up and down and o'er and o'er 
He splashes, as none s]ilashed before 
Since great Caldara Polidore. 
Or Music means this land of ours 
Some favor yet, to pity won 
By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers, — 
" Give me my so-long promised son, 
Let Waring end what I begun ! " 
Tlien down he creejis and out he steals, 
Only when the night conceals 
His face ; in Kent 'tis cherry-time, 
Or hops are picking : or at prime 
Of ]March he wanders as, too happy, 
Years ago when he was young. 
Some mild eve when woods grew 

sapjiy. 
And the early moths had sprung 
To life from many a trembling sheath 
Woven the warm boughs beneath ; 
While small birds said to themselves 
What should soon be actual song. 
And young gnats, by tens and twelves 
^lade as if they were the throng 
That crowd around and carry aloft 
The sound they have nurs<'(l, so s^eet 

and pure. 
Out of a myriad noises soft. 
Into a tone that can endure 



WARING. 



61 



Amid the noise of a July noon 
When all God's creatures crave their 

boon, 
All at once, and all in tune. 
And get it, happy as Waring then. 
Having first within his ken 
Wliat a man might do with men : 
And far too glad, in the even-glow, 
To mix with the world he meant to 

take 
Into his hand, he told you, so — 
And out of it his world to make, 
To contract and to expand 
As he shut or oped his hand. 
O Waring ! what's to really be ? 
A clear stage and a crowd to see ! 
Some Garrick, say, out shall not he 
The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck ? 
Or, where most unclean beasts are 

rife. 
Some Junius — am I right? — shall 

tuck 
His sleeve, and forth with fiayiug- 

knife ! 
Some Chatterton shall have the luck 
Of calling Rowley into life ! 
Some one shall somehow run a muck 
With this old world, for want of strife 
Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive 
To rouse us. Waring ! Who's alive ? 
Our men scarce seem in earnest now. 
Distinguished names ! — but 'tis, some- 
how, 
As if they played at being names 
Still more distinguished, like the 

games 
Of children. Turn our sport to ear- 
nest 
With a visage of the sternest ! 
Bring the real times back, confessed 
Still better than our very best ! 



H 



" When I last saw Waring "... 
(How all turned to him who spoke ! 
You saw Waring ? Truth or joke ? 
In land-travel or sea- faring ?) 



" We were sailing by Triest 

Where a day or two we harbored : 

.\ sunset was in the West, 

When, looking over the vessel's side, 

Omc of our company espied 

A sudden speck to larboard. 



And as a sea-duck flies and swims 
At once, so came the light craft up, 
With its sole lateen sail that trims 
And turns (the water round its rims 
Dancing, as round a sinking cup) 
And by us like a fish it curled. 
And drew itself up close beside. 
Its great sail on the instant furled, 
And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice 

cried 
(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's) 
' Buy wine of us, you English Brig ? 
Or fruit, tobacco and cigars ? 
A pilot for you to Triest ? 
Without one, look you ne'er so big, 
They'll never let you up the bay ! 
A\'e natives should know best.' 
I turned, and 'just those fellows' 

way,' 
Our captain said, ' The 'long-shore 

thieves 
Are laughing at us in their sleeves.' 



" In truth, the boy leaned laughing 

back ; 
And one half-hidden by his side 
Under the furled sail, soon I spied. 
With great grass hat and kerchiel 

black, 
Who looked up with his kingly 

throat. 
Said somewhat, while the othei 

shook 
His hair back from his eyes to look 
Their longest at us ; then the boat, 
I know not how, turned sharpl) 

round, 
Laying her whole side on the sea 
As a leaping fish does ; from the lee 
Into the weather, cut somehow 
Her sparkling path beneath our bow, 
And so went off, as with a bound, 
Into the rosy and golden half 
O' the sky, to overtake the sun 
And reach the shore, like the sea* 

calf 
Its singing cave ; yet I caught one 
Glance ere away the boat quite 

passed. 
And neither time nor toil could mar 
Those features : so I saw the last 
Of Waring!"— You? Oh, nevei 

star 
Was lost here but it rose afar I 
Look East, where whole new thou- 
sands are 1 
In Vishnu-land what Avatar ? 



(;2 



HOME rilOUGTTTFi, FROM ABROAD. 



IIO^IE THOUGHTS, FlKBl 
ABROAD. 



Oh, to be in England now tliat April's 

there, 
And whoever wakes in England sees, 

some morning, unaware, 
That the lowest houghs and the brush- 
wood sheaf 
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny 

leaf. 
While the ehafflnch sings on the 

orchard bough 
In England — now ! 
And after April, when May follows 
And the white-throat builds, and all 

tlu^ swallows ! 
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree 

in the hedge 
Leans to the field and scatters on the 

clover • 
Blossoms anil dewdrops — at the bent 

spray's edge — 
That's the wise tlirush : he sings each 

song twice over 
Lest you should think he never could 

reea[>ture 
The first line careless rapture ! 
And though the fields look rough with 

hoary dew. 
And will be gay when noontide wakes 

anew 
The buttercups, the little children's 

dower 
— Far brighter than this gaudy melon- 

tiower ! 



THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. 

That second time they hnnted me 
From hill to plain, from shore to sea. 
And Austria, hounding far and wide 
Her blood-hounds through the coun- 
tryside 
Breathed hot and instant on my 

trace. — 
I made six days a hiding-place 
Of that dry green old aqueduct 
Where I and Charles, when boys, have 

plucked 
The fire-rties from the roof above, 
Biaght creeping through the moss they 
love : 



— How long it seems since Charles 

was lost ! 
Six days the soldiers crossed and 

crossed 
The country in my very sight ; 
And when that peril ceased at night, 
The sky broke out in red dismay 
With signal fires ; well, there I'lay 
Close covered o'er in my recess, 
V\) to tlie neck in ferns and cress. 
Thinking on Metternich our friend, 
And C'liarles's miserable end, 
And much beside, two days ; the 

third. 
Hunger o'ercame me when I heard 
The peasants from the village go 
To work among the maize ; you know, 
^^■ith us in Loinbardy, th(\v'l)ring 
rro\isions jiackcd on mules, a string. 
With little bells that cheer th(>ir task, 
And casks, and boughs on every cask 
To ke(^ii the sun's heat from the 

wine ; 
These I let )iass in jingling line. 
And, close on tluim, (tear noisy crew, 
The jiea.sants from the village," too ; 
For at the very rear would troo|) 
Their wives and sisters in a group 
To help, I knew; when these had 

jiassed, 
r threw my glove to strike the last. 
Taking the chance : she did not start, 
ISIuch less cry out, but stooped apart. 
One instant rapidly glanccil round, 
And saw me beckon from the ground : 
A wild bush grows and hides my 

cry[>t ; 
She pii'kcd my glove up while she 

strijiped 
A branch olT, then rejoined the rest 
\\'ith thai; my glove lay in her breast: 
Then I ilrew breath ; they disajv 

peared : 
It was for Italy I feared. 

An hour, and she I'eturned alone 
Exactly wliere my glove was thrown. 
Meanwhile came many thoughts ; on 

me 
Rested the hopes of Italy ; 
I had dc\iscd a certain tale 
Which, when 'twas told her, could 

not fail 
Persuade a peasant of its truth ; 
I meant to call a freak of youth 
Tills hilling, and give hojies of pay. 
And no tcm|>tation to betray. 
Rut when I saw that woman's face. 
Its calm simplicity of grace. 



THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. 



63 



Our Italy's own attitudo 

In wliicli she walked thus far, and 

stood , 
Planting each naked foot so firm, 
To crush the snake and spare the 

worm — 
At first sight of lier eyes, I said, 
" I am that man upon wliose head 
They tix the price, because I hate 
TheAustrians over us : the State 
Will give, you gold — oh, gold so 

much ! — 
If you betray me to their clutch, 
And be your death, for aught I know. 
If once they find you savtid their foe. 
Now, you must bring me food and 

drink. 
And also paper, pen and ink. 
And carry safe what I shall write 
To I'adua, which you'll r(;ach at night 
Before the duomo shuts ; go in, 
And wait till TeuebriB begin ; 
Walk to the third confessional, 
Between the pillar and the wall. 
And kneeling whisper. Whence comes 

peace f 
Say it a second time, then cease ; 
And if the voice inside returns, 
From Christ and Freedom; what con- 

ceryis 
The cause of Peace? — for answer, slip 
My letter wliere you placed your lip ; 
Then come back hapjiy : we have done 
Our mother service — I, tlie son. 
As you the daughter of our land ! " 

Three mornings more, she took her 

stand 
In the same place, with the same 

eyes : 
I was no surer of sunrise 
Than of h(!r coming : we conferred 
Of her own prospects, and I heard 
She had a lover — stout and tall. 
She said — then let her eyelids fall, 
"He could do much" — as if some 

doubt 
Entered her heart, — then, passing 

out, 
" She could not si)eak for others, who 
Had other thoughts ; herself she 

knew : " 
And so she brought me drink and 

food. 
After four days, the scouts pursued 
Another jiath ; at last arrived 
The licl]) Tiiy Paduaii friends contrived 
To furnish me : she brought the news. 
For the first time I could not choose 



But kiss her hand, and lay my own 
Upon her head — "This faith was 

shown 
To Italy, our mother ; she 
Uses my hand and blesses thee." 
She followed down to the s(!a-shore ; 
I left and never saw her more. 

How very long since I have thought 
Concerninf —much less wished for — 

aught 
Beside the good of Italy, 
For which I live and mean to die ! 
I never was in love ; and since 
Charles proved false, what shall now 

convince 
My inmost heart I have a friend ? 
However, if I pleased to spend 
Keal wishes on myself — say, three — 
r know at least what ciu; should be. 
I would grasp Metternich until 
I felt his red wet throat distil 
In bk)0(l through these two hands. 

xVnd next, 

— Nor nuich for that am I perplexed — 
Charles, perjured traitor, for his part, 
Should ilie slow of a broken heart 
Under his new employers. Last 

— Ah! there, what should I wish? 

For fast 
Do I grow old and out of strength. 
If I resolviul to seek at length 
My father's house again, how scared 
They all would look, and unpreparedl 
My brothers live in Austria's i)ay 

— Disown(Hl me long ago, men say ; 
And all my early mates who used 
To praise me so — perhaps induced 
More than oiui early step of mine — 
Are turning wise : while soiius 0})ine 
" Freedom grows license," some sus- 
pect 

" Haste breeds delay," and recollect 
They always said, such pri^nature 
Beginnings never could endure ! 
So, with a sullen " All's for best," 
The laud S(!ems settling to its rest. 
I think then, I should wish to stand 
This evening in that dear, lost laud. 
Over the sea the thousand miles, 
And know if yet that woman smiles 
With the calm smile ; some little 

farm 
She lives in there, no doubt : what 

harm 
If I sat on the door-side bench, 
And wliih^ her spindle made a trendi 
Fantastically in the dust, 
Inquired of all her fortunes — just 



64 



THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. 



Her children's ages and their names, 
And what may be the husband's 

aims 
For eacli of them, I'd talk this 

out, 
And sit there, for an hour about, 



Then kiss her hand once more, and 

lay 
Mine on her head, and go my way. 

So much for idle wishing — how 
It steals the time ! To business now. 



THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. 



PIANO DI SORRENTO. 

FoRTiT, Fortu, my beloved one, sit here hy my side, 

On m.y knees put up both little feet ! I was sure, if I tried, 

I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco. Now, open your eyes, 

Let me keep you amused, till he vanish in black from the skies, 

With telling my memories over, as you tell your beads ; 

All the Plain sAw me gather, I garland — the flowers or the weeds. 

Time for rain ! for your long hot dry autumn had networked with brown 
The white skin of each grape on the bunches, marked like a quail's crown, 
Those creatures you make such account of, whose heads, — specked with 

white 
Over brown like a great spider's back, as I told you last night, — 
Your mother bites off for her supper. Red-ripe as could be. 
Pomegranates were chapping and splitting in halves on the tree. 
And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone, or in the thick dust 
On the jJath, or straight out of the rock-side, wherever could thrust 
Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-fiower its yellow face up. 
For the prize were great butterflies fighting, some five for one cup. 
So, I guessed, ere I got up this morning, what change was in store, 
By tlie quick rustle-dowu of the quail-nets which woke me "before 
I could open my shvitter, made fast with a bough and a stone. 
And look through the twisted dead vine-twigs, sole lattice that's known. 
Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net-poles, while, busy beneath, 
Your priest and his brother tugged at them, the rain in their teeth. 
And out upon all the flat house-roofs, where split figs lay drying. 
The girls took the frails under cover : nor use seemed in trying 
To get out the boats and go fishing, for, un<ler the cliff, 
Fierce the black water frothed o'er the blind rock. No seeing our skiff 
Arrive about noon from Amalft ! — our fisher arrive, 
Autl pitch down his basket before us, all trembling alive, 
^Vith jiink and gray jellies, your sea-fruit ; you touch the strange lumps, 
And months gape there, eyes open, all manner of horns and of humps, 
^Vhich only the fisher looks gi'ave at, while round liim like imps. 
Cling screaming the children as naked and brown as his shrimps ; 
Himself too as bare to the middle — you see round his neck 
The string and its brass coin suspended, that saves him from wreclc. 
But to-(.lay not a boat reached Salerno : so back, to a man, 
Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards grajie-harvest began. 
In the A-at, half-way up in our house-side, like blood the juice spins, 
AVhile your brother all bare-legged is dancing till breathless he grins 
Dead-beaten in effort on effort to keep the grapes under, 
Since still, when he seems all but master, in ])(>urs the fresh plunder 
From girls who keep coming and going wjth basket on shoulder, 
And eyes shut against the rain's driving ; your girls that are oldei", — 



THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. 66 

For under the hedges of aloe, and where, on its bed 

or the orchard's black mould, the love-apple lies pulpy and red, 

All the young ones are kneeling and filling their laps with the snails 

Tempted out by tjiis first rainy weath(;r, — your best of regales. 

As to-night will be proved to my sorrow, when, snipping in state. 

We shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen, three over one plate) 

With lasagne so tempting to swallow in slippery ropes, 

And gourds fried in great purjile slices, that color of popes. 

Meantime, see the grape-bunch they've brought you : the rain-water slips 

O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe which the wasp to your lips 

Still follows with fretful persistence. Nay, taste, while awake, 

This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball that peels, flake by flake. 

Like an onion, each smoother and whiter : next, sip this weak wine 

Froi'i the thin green glass flask, with its stopper, a leaf of the vine ; 

And end with the prickly pear's red flesh that leaves tiirough its juice 

The sjiouy black seeds on your pearl-teeth. 

Scirocco is loose ! 
Hark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olives which, thick in one's track. 
Tempt ihe stranger to pick up and bite them, though not yet half black ! 
How the Did twisted olive-trunks shudder, the medlars let fall 
Their hard fruit, and the brittle great tig-trees snap off, figs and all, 
For here comes the whole of the tempest ! no refuge, but creep 
Back again to my side and my shoulder, and listen or sleep. 

Oh ! how will your country show next week, when all the vine-boughs 
Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture the mules and the cows ? 
Last eve, I rode over the moiiiitains ; your brother, my guide, 
Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles that offered, each side, 
Their fruit-balls, black, glossy,' and luscious, —or strip from the sorbs 
A treasure, or, rosy and wondrous, those hairy gold orbs ! 
But iny mule picked his sure sober path out, just stopping to neigh 
When he recognized down in the valley his mates on their way 
With the fagots and barrels of water. And soon we emerged 
From the plain where the woods could scarce follow ; and still, as we urged 
Our way, the woods wondered, and left us. Up, up still we trudged. 
Though the wild path grew wilder each instant, and place was e'en grudged 
'Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones like the loose broken teeth 
Of some monster which climbed there to die, from the ocean beneath — 
Place was grudged to the silver-gray fume-weed that clung to the path, 
And dark rosemary ever a-dying, that, 'spite the wind's wrath. 
So loves the salt rock's face to seaward : and lentisks as stanch 
To the stone where they root and bear berries: and . . . what shows a branch 
Coral-colored, transparent, with circlets of pale seagreen leaves ; 
Over all trod my mule witli the caution of gleaners o'er sheaves. 
Still, foot after foot like a lady, still, round after round. 
He climbed to the top of Calvano : and God's own profound 
Was above me, and round me the mountains, and under, the sea, 
And within me my heart to bear witness what was and shall be. 
Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal ! no rampart excludes 
Your eye from the life to be lived in the blue solitudes. 
Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement ! still moving with you ; 
For, ever some new head and breast of them thrusts into view 
To observe the intruder ; you see it, if quickly you turn 

And, before they escape you, surprise them. "They grudge you should learn 
How the soft plains they look on, lean over and love (they pretend) 
— Cower beneath them, the black sea-pine crouches, the wild fruit-trees bend, 
E'en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut : all is silent and grave : 
'Tis a sensual and timorous beauty, — how fair ! but a slave. 



66 THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. 

So, I turned to the sea ; and there slumbered, as greenly as ever 

Those isles of the sii'en, your Galli. No ages can sever 

The Three, nor enable their sister to join them, — half-way 

On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses — no farther to-day ! 

Though the small one, just launched in the wave, watches breast-high and 

steady 
From under the rock her bold sister, swum half-way already. 
Fortii, shall we sail there together, and see, from the sides, 
Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts where the siren abides ? 
Shall we sail round and round them, close over the rocks, though unseen, 
That ruffle the gray glassy water to glorious green ? 
Then scramble from splinter to splinter, reach land, and explore. 
On the largest, the strange square black turret with never a door. 
Just a loop to admit the quick lizards ? Then, stand there and hear 
The birds' quiet singing, that tells us what life is, so clear ? 

— The secret they sang to Ulysses when, ages ago, 

He heard and he knew this life's secret, I hear and I know. 

Ah, see ! The sun breaks o'er Calvano. He strikes the great gloom 
And flutters it o'er the mount's summit in airy gold fume. 
All is over. Look out, see, the gypsy, our tinker and smith. 
Has aiTived, set up bellows and forge, and down-squatted forthwith 
To his hammering under the wall there ! One ej-e keeps aloof 
The urchins that itch to be putting his Jew's-harp to proof, 
While the other, through locks of curled wire, is watching how sleek 
Shines the hog, come to share in the windfall. Chew, abbot's own cheek 1 
All is over. Wake up and come out now, and down let us go, 
And see the fine things got in order at church for the show 
Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening. To-morrow's the Feast 
Of the Rosary's Virgin, by no means of Virgins the least : 
As j-ou'U hear in the off-hand discourse which (all nature, no art) 
The Dominican brother, these three weeks, was getting by heart. 
Not a pillar nor post but is dizened with red and blue papers ; 
All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar ablaze with long tapers. 
But the great masterpiece is the scaffold rigged glorious to hold 
All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers and trumpeters bold 
Not afraid of Bellini nor Auber : who, when the priest's hoarse, 
Will strike us up something that's brisk for the feast's second course. 
And tlien will the flaxen-wigged Image be carried in pomp 
Through the plain, while, in gallant procession, the priests mean to stomp 
All round the glad church lie old bottles with gunpowder stopped, 
Which will be, when the Image re-enters, religiously popped. 
And at night from the crest of Calvano great bonfires will hang : 
On the plain will the trumpets join chorus, and more poppers bang. 
At all events, come — to the garden, as far as the wall ; 
See me tap with a hoe on the plaster, till out there shall fall 
A scorpion with wide angry nippers ! 

— " Such trifles ! " you say T 
Fortii, in my England at home, men meet gravely to-day 
And debate", if abolishing corn-laws be righteous and wise ! 

— If t'were proper, Scirocco should vanish in black from the skies I 



UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY. 67 

UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY. 

(AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OP QUALITY.) 



Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, 
The hotise for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square ; 
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there ! 

II. 

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least ! 

There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast ; 

While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast. 

III. 
"Well now, look at our villa ! stuck like the horn of a bull 
Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull, 
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull ! 
— I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool. 



But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses ! Why? 

Tliey are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye I 

Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry; 

You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by; 

Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high ; 

And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly. 



■\Vhat of a villa ? Though winter be over in March by rights, 
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights : 
You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze, 
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive-trees. 



Is it better in May, I ask you ? You've summer all at once ; 

.In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 

'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, 

The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell 

Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to jiick and sell. 

VII. 

Is it ever hot in the square ? There's a fountain to spout and splash ! 
In the shade it sings and springs ; in the shine such foam-bows flash 
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash 
Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not abash. 
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash. 

VIII. 

All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger. 

Except yon ciipress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger. 

Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle. 

Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. 

Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill. 

And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. 

Enough of the seasons, — I spare you the months of the fever aad chill. 



68 



PICT OR IGNOTUS. 



Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin : 

No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in : 

You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. 

By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth 

Ol" the Pnlcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. 

At the post-office such a scene-picture — the new play, piping hot ! 

And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. 

Above it, behold the Archbishoij's most fatherly of rebukes, 

And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the 

Duke's ! 
Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-aud-so 
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and Cicero, 
"And moreover" (the sonnet goes rhyming), "the skirts of Saint Paul has 

reached, 
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he 

preached." 
Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and 

smart, 
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart 1 
Banfi-ivhamj-ivhang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife ; 
No keeping one's haunches still : it's the greatest pleasure in life. 



But bless you, it's dear — it's dear ! fowls, wine, at double the rate. 
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate 
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city ! 
Beggars can scarcely be choosers : but still — ah, the pity, the pity ! 
Look, two and two go the ]iriests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, 
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles ; 
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles. 
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scan- 
dals : 
Bami-ichanfj-whanfi goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife. 
Oh, a day iu the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life ! 



PICTOR IGNOTUS. 

[FLORENCE, 15—.] 

I COULD have painted pictures like 
that youth's 
Ye praise so. How my soul springs 
up ! No bar 
Stayed me — ah, thought which sad- 
dens while it soothes ! 
— Never did fate forbid me, star by 
star. 
To outburst on your night, with all 
my gift 
Of fires from God : nor would my 
flesh hcve shruuk 



From seconding my soul, with eyes 
uplift 
And wide to heaven, or, straight like 
thunder, sunk 
To the centre, of an instant ; or 
around 
Turned calmly and inqiiisitive, to 
scan 
The license and the limit, space and 
bound. 
Allowed to truth qpade visible in 
man. 
And, like that youth ye praise so, all 
I saw. 
Over .the canvas could my hand 
have flung, 



PICTOR IGNOTUS. 



69 



Each face obedient to its passion's 
law, 
Each passion clear proclaimed with- 
out a tongue : 
Whether Hope rose at once in all the 
blood, 
A-tiptoe for the blessing of em- 
brace, 
~ir Rapture drooped the eyes, as when 
her brood 
Pull down the nesting dove's heart 
to its place ; 
Or Confidence lit swift the forehead 
up, 
And locked the mouth fast, like a 
castle braved, — 
O human faces ! hath it spilt, my cup ? 
What did ye give me that I have 
not saved ? 
Kor will I say I have not dreamed 
(how well !) 
Of going— I, in each new picture, 
— forth. 
As, making new hearts beat and 
bosoms swell. 
To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, 
South, or North, 
Bound for the calmly satisfied great 
State, 
Or glad aspiring little burgh, it 
went. 
Flowers cast upon the car which bore 
the freight, 
Through old streets named afresh 
from the event. 
Till it reached home, where learned 
age should greet 
My face, and youth, the star not yet 
distinct 
Above his hair, lie learning at my 
feet ! — 
Oh ! thus to live, I and my picture, 
linked 
With love about, and praise, till life 
should end. 
And then not go to heaven, but 
linger here. 
Here on my earth, earth's every man 
my friend. 
The thought grew frightful, 'twas so 
wildly dear ! 
But a voice changed it. Glimpses of 
such sights 
Have scared me, like the revels 
through a door 
Of some strange house of idols at its 
rites 1 



This world seemed not the world it 
was, before : 
Mixed with my loving trusting ones, 
there trooped 
. . . Who summoned those cold 
faces that begun 
To 2iress on me and judge me ? 
Though I stooped 
Shrinking, as from the soldiery a 
nun. 
They drew me forth, and spite of me 
. . . enough ! 
These buy and sell our pictures, 
take and give. 
Count them for garniture and house- 
hold-stuff. 
And where they live needs must 
our pictures live 
And see their faces, listen to their 
prate. 
Partakers of their daily pettiness, 
Discussed of, — " This I love, or this I 
hate. 
This likes me more, and this aifects 
me less ! " 
Wherefore I chose my jjortion. If at 
whiles 
My heart sinks, as monotonous I 
paint 
These endless cloisters and eternal 
aisles 
With the same series, Virgin, Babe, 
and Saint, 
With the same cold calm beautiful 
regard, — 
At least no merchant traffics in my 
heart ; 
The sanctuary's gloom at least shall 
ward 
Vain tongues from where my pic- 
tures stand apart : 
Only prayer breaks the silence of the 
shrine 
While, blackening in the daily 
candle-smoke, 
They moulder on the damp wall's 
travertine, 
'Mid echoes the light footstej) never 
woke. 
So, die my pictures ! surely, gently 
die ! 
O youth ! men i^raise so, — holds 
their praise its worth ? 
Blown harshly, keeps the trumj) its 
golden cry ? 
Tastes sweet the water with such 
specks of earth ? 



70 



FRA LIPPO LIPPI. 



FRA LIPPO LIPPI. 

I AM poor brother Lippo, by your 

leave 
You need not clap your torches to my 

face. 
Zooks ! what's to blame ? you think 

you see a monk ! 
What, 'tis past midnight, and you go 

the rounds, 
And here you catch me at an alley's 

end 
"Where sportive ladies leave their 

doors ajar ? 
The Carmine's my cloister : hunt it 

up, 
Do, — harry out, if you must show 

your zeal. 
Whatever rat, there, haps on his 

wrong hole. 
And nip each softling of a wee white 

mouse, 
Weke, tceke, that's crept to keep him 



company 



Aha ! you know your betters ? Then, 

you'll take 
Your hand away that's fiddling on 

my throat. 
And please to know me likewise. 

Who am I ? 
Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a 

friend 
Three streets off — he's a certain . . . 

how d'ye call ? 
Master — a . . . Cosimo of the Medici, 
I' the house that caps the corner. 

Boh ! you were best ! 
Remember and tell me the day you're 

hanged. 
How you affected such a guUet's- 

gripe ! 
But you, sir, it concerns you that your 

knaves 
Pick lip a manner, nor discredit you : 
Zooks ! are we pilchards, that they 

sweep the streets 
And count fair prize what comes into 

their net ? 
He's Judas to a tittle, that man is ! 
Just such a face! Why, sir, you make 

amends. 
Lord, I'm not angry! Bid your hang- 
dogs go 
Drink out this quarter-florin to the 

health 
Of the munificent House that harbors 

me 
(And many more beside, lads ! more 

beside !) 



And all's come square again. I'd like 

his face — 
His, elbowing on his comrade in the 

door 
With the pike and lantern, — for the 

slave that holds 
John Baptist's head a-dangle by the 

hair 
With one hand (" Look you, now," as 

who should say) 
And his weapon in the other, yet un- 

wiped ! 
It's not your chance to have a bit of 

chalk, 
A wood-coal or the like ? or you 

should see ! 
Yes, I'm the painter, since you style 

me so. 
What, brother Lippo's doings, up and 

down, 
You know them, and they take you ? 

like enough ! 
I saw the proper twinkle in your 

eye — 
'Tell you, I liked your looks at very 

first. 
Let's sit and set things straight now, 

hip to haunch. 
Here's spring come, and the nights 

one makes up bands 
To roam the town and sing out car- 
nival. 
And I've been three weeks shut with- 
in my mew, 
A-painting for the great man, saints 

and saints 
And saints again. I could not paint 

all night — 
Ouf ! I leaned out of window lor fresh 

air. 
There came a hurry of feet and little 

feet, 
A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and 

whifts of song, — 
Flower o' the broom. 
Take away love, and oar earth is a tomb! 
Flower o' the quince, 
I let Lisa yo, and what f/ood in life 

since ? 
Flower o' the thyme — and so on. 

Round they went. 
Scarce had they turned the corner 

when a titter 
Like the skipping of rabbits by moon' 

light, — three slim shapes, 
Andaface that looked up . . . zooks, 

sir, flesh and blood 
That's all I'm made of ! Into shreds 

it went, 



FRA LfPPO LTPPT. 



n 



Curtain and counterpane and cover- 
let, 
All the bed-furniture — adozen knots, 
There was a ladder! Down I let my- 
self, 
Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, 

and so ilrojiped, 
A.nd after them. I came up with the 

fun 
Hard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, 

well met, — 
Flower o' the rose, 
If I've been merry, lohat matter who 

knows ? 
And so, as I was stealing back again, 
To get to bed and have a bit of sleep 
Ere 1 rise up to-morrow and go work 
On Jerome knocking at his poor old 

breast 
"With his great round stone to subdue 

the flesh, 
You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I 

see ! 
Though your eye twinkles still, you 

shake your head — 
Mine's shaved — a monk, you say — 

the sting's in that ! 
If Master Cosimo announced himself. 
Mum's the word naturally; but a 

monk ! 
Come, what am I a beast for ? tell us, 

now ! 
I was a baby when my mother died 
And father died and left me in the 

street. 
I starved there, God knows how, a 

year or two 
On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and 

shucks. 
Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty 

day, 
My stomach being empty as your 

hat. 
The wind doubled me up and down I 

went. 
Old aunt Lapaccia trussed me with 

one hand 
(Its fellow was a stinger, as I knew), 
And so along the wall, over the 

bridge. 
By the straight cut to the convent. 

Six words there, 
While I stood munching my first 

bread that month : 
"So, boy, you're minded," quoth the 

good fat father 
Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refec- 
tion-time, — 
" To quit this very miserable world ? 



Will you renounce " . . . " the mouth- 
ful of bread ? " thought I ; 
By no means ! Brief, they made a 

monk of me ; 
I did renounce the world, its pride 

and greed. 
Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking- 
house. 
Trash, such as these jDOor devils of 

Medici 
Have given their hearts to — all at 

eight years old. 
Well, sir, I found in time, you may 

be sure, 
'Twas not for nothing — the good 

bellyful, 
The warm serge and the rope that 

goes all round, 
And day-long blessed idleness beside! 
" Let's see what the urchin's tit fo"" 

— that came next. 
Not overmuch their way, I must con- 
fess. 
Such a to-do ! They tried me with 

their books : 
Lord, they'd have taught me Latin in 

pure waste ! 
Floiver o' the clove, 
All the Latin I construe is, " Amo " 1 

love ! 
But, mind you, when a boy starves 

in the streets 
Eight years together as my fortune 

was, 
Watching folk's faces to know who 

will fling 
The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch 

he desires. 
And who will curse or kick him for 

his pains, — 
Which gentleman processional and 

fine. 
Holding a candle to the Sacrament, 
Will wink and let him lift a plate and 

catch 
The droppings of the wax to sell 

again, 
Or holla for the Eight and have him 

whipped, — 
How say I ? — nay, which dog bites, 

which lets drop 
His bone from the heap of offal in the 

street, — 
Why, soul and sense of him grow 

sharp alike, 
He learns the look of things, and none 

the less 
For admonition from the hunger- 
pinch. 



72 



FRA LIPPO LIPPI. 



I had a store of such remarks, he 
sure, 

Which, after I found leisure, turned 
to use : 

I drew men's faces on my copy-books, 

Scrawled them within the antipho- 
nary's marge. 

Joined legs and arms to the long 
music-notes. 

Found eyes and nose and chin for A's 
and B's, 

And made a string of pictures of the 
w^rld 

Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and 
noun, 

On the wall, the bench, the door. 
The monks looked black. 

"Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him 
out, d'ye say ? 

In no wise. Lose a crow and catch 
a lark. 

What if at last we get our man of 
parts. 

We Carmelites, like those Camaldo- 
lese 

And Preaching Friars, to do our 
cluirch up fine 

And put the front on it that ouglit to 
be ! " 

And hereupon he bade me daub away. 

Thank you! my head being crammed, 
the walls a lilank. 

Never was such prompt disemburden- 
ing. 

First every sort of monk, the black 
and white, 

I drew them, fat and lean: then, folks 
at church. 

From good old gossips waiting to con- 
fess 

Their cribs of barrel-droppings, can- 
dle-ends, — 

To the breathless fellow at the altar- 
foot. 
Fresh from his murder, safe and sit- 
ting there 

With the little children round him in 

a row 
Of admiration, half for his beard, and 

half 
For that white anger of his, victim's 

son 
Shaking a fist at him with one fierce 

arm, 
Signing himself with the other be- 
cause of Christ 
(Whose sad face on the cross sees only 

this 
After the passion of a thousand years), 



Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her 

head 
(Which the intense eyes looked 

through), came at eve 
On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a 

loaf, 
Her pair of earrings and a bunch of 

flowers 
(The brute took growling), prayed, and 

so was gone. 
I painted all, then cried, " 'Tis ask 

and have ; 
Choose, for more's ready ! " — laid the 

ladder flat, 
And showed my covered bit of clois- 
ter-wall. 
The monks closed in a circle and 

praised loud 
Till checked, taught what to see and 

not to see. 
Being simple bodies,— " That's the 

' very man ! 
Look at the boy who stco),.A to pat the 

dog ! 
That woman's like the F-i^r's niece 

who comes 
To care about his asth;ui», : it's the 

life ! " 
But there my triumph's straw-fire 

flared and funked ; 
Their betters took their turn to see 

and say : 
The Prior and the learned pulled a face 
And stopped all that in no time. 

" How ? what's liere ? 
Quite from the mark of painting, bless 

us all ! 
Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the 

true 
As much as pea and pea ! it's devil's 

game ! 
Your business is not to catch men with 

show, 
With homage to the perishable clay. 
But lift them over it, ignore it all. 
Make them forget there's such a thing 

as flesh. 
Your business is to paint the souls of 

men — 
Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke . . . 

no, it's not . . . 
It's vapor done up like a new-born 

babe — 
(In that shape when you die it leaves 

your mouth), 
It's . . . well, what matters talking, 

it's the soul ! 
Give us no more or body than shows 

soul I 



FRA L/PPO LIPPL 



73 



Here's Giotto, with liis Saint a-prais- 

ing God, 
That sets ns praising, — why not stop 

with him ? 
"Why put all thoughts of praise out of 

our head 
"With wonder at lines, colors, and 

what not ? 
Paint the soul, never mind the legs 

and arms ! 
Rub all out, try at it a second time ! 
Oil ! that white smallish female with 

the breasts. 
She's just my niece . . . Herodias, I 

would say, — 
Wlio went and danced, and got men's 

heads cut off ! 
Have it all out ! " Now, is this sense, 

I ask ? 
A fine way to paint soul, by painting 

body 
So ill, the eye can't stop there, must 

go farther 
And can't fare worse ! Thus, yellow 

does for white 
When what you put for yellow's 

simjily black. 
And any sort of meaning looks in- 
tense 
AVhen all beside itself means and 

looks naught. 
Why can't a painter lift each foot in 

turn. 
Left foot and right foot, go a double 

step. 
Make his flesh likerand his soul more 

like, 
Both in their order ? Take the pret- 
tiest face, 
Thi Prior's niece . . . patron saint — 

is it so i:)retty 
You can't discover if it means hope, 

fear. 
Sorrow or joy ? won't beauty go with 

these ? 
Suppose I've made her eyes all right 

and blue, 
Can't I take breath and try to add 

life's flash. 
And then add soul and heighten them 

threefold ? 
Or say there's beauty with no soul 

at all — 
(I never saw it — put the case the 

same — ) 
If you get simple beauty and naught 

else, 
You get about the best thing God 

invents : 



That's somewhat : and you'll find the 

soul you have missed. 
Within yourself, when j-ou return 

him thanks. 
"Rub all out !" Well, well, there's 

my life, in short, 
And so the thing has gone on ever 

since. 
I'm grown a man no doubt, I've 

broken bounds : 
You should not take a fellow eight 

years old 
And make him swear to never kiss the 

girls. 
I'm my own master, paint now as I 

please — 
Having a friend, you see, in the 

Corner-house ! 
Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in 

front — 
Those great rings serve more purposes 

than just 
To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse ! 
And yet the old schooling sticks, the 

old grave eyes 
Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I 

Avork, 
The heads shake still — "It's art's 

decline, my son ! 
You're not of the true painters, great 

and old ; 
Brother Angelico's the man, you'll 

find : 
Brother Loi-enzo stands his single 

peer : 
Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the 

third ! " 
Floioer o' the pine, 
Yoti keep your mistr . . . manners, and 

I'll stick to mine ! 
I'm not the third, then : bless us, 

they must know ! 
Don't you think they're the likeliest 

to know. 
They with their Latin ? So, I swallow 

my rage. 
Clinch my teeth, suck my lijjs in 

tight, and paint 
To please them — sometimes do, and 

sometimes don't ; 
For, doing most, there's pretty sure to 

come 
A turn, some warm eve finds me at 

my saints — 
A laugh, a cry, the business of the 

world — 
{Flower o' the peach. 
Death for iis all, and his own life for 

each .') 



74 



FRA LJPPO LIPPT. 



And luy whole sonl revolves, the cup 

runs over. 
The world and life's too big to pass for 

a dream. 
And I do tliese wild things in sheer 

despite, 
And play the fooleries you catch uie 

at ' 
In pure rage ! The old mill-horse. 

out at grass 
After hard yeiu-s, throws up his stiff 

heels so. 
Although the miller does not preach 

to him 
The onlv srood of grass is to make 

chaffr 
What would men have '? Do they like 

grass or iio — 
May they or mayn't they '? all I want's 

the thing 
Settled forever one way. As it is, 
i'ou toll too nianv lies and hurt your- 
self : 
You don't like what you only like too 

much. 
You do like what, if given you at 

your word. 
You tind abundatitly detestable. 
For me. I think I speak as I was 

taught. 
I always see the garden, and God 

tliere 
A-making man's wife : and, my lesson 

learned. 
The value and significance of tlesh. 
X can't unleiurn ten minutes after- 
wards. 
You understand me : I'm a beast, I 

know. 
But see. now — why, I see as cer- 
tainly 
As that tiie morning-star's about to 

shine. 
What will hap some day. We've a 

youngster here 
Comes to our convent, studies what I 

do. 
Slouches and stares and lets no atom 

drop : 
His name is Guidi — he'll not mind 

the monks — 
They call him Hulking Tom~, he lets 

them talk — 
He picks my practice up — he'll ix\int 

apacei 
1 hoj^e so — though I never live so 

long, 
i Know wliat's sure to follow. You 

l>e judge ! 



You speak no Latin more than I, 

belike ; 
However, you're my man, youve 

seen the world 

— The beauty and the wonder and 

tlie power. 
The shajies of things, their colors, 

lights, and shades. 
Changes, surprises, — and God made 

it all ! 

— For what"? Do you feel thankful, 

ay or no. 
For this fair town's face, yonder 

river's line. 
The mountain round it and the sky 

alwve. 
Much more the figures of man, woman, 

child, 
These are the frame to ? What's it 

all alK)ut ? 
To be passed over, despised ? or dwelt 

uix>u, 
Wondered at ? oh, this last of course ! 

— you Si\y. 
But why not do as well as say, — 

paint these 
Just as they are, careless what comes 

of it '? 
God's works — paint any one, and 

count it crime 
To let a truth slip. Don't object, 

'"His works 
Are here already ; nature is complete: 
SupiKise you reproduce her— (which 

you can't) 
There's no advantage ! yon must beat 

her. then." 
For, don't you mark ? we're made so 

that we love 
First when we see them painted, 

things we have passed 
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to 

see; 
And so they are bett«r, painted — 

better to us. 
Which is the same thing. Art was 

given for that ; 
God uses us to help each other so, 
Lending our minds out. Have you 

noticed, now 
Your cuUion's hausing face"? A bit 

of chalk. 
And trust me but you should, though ! 

How much more 
If I drew higher things with the same 

truth ! 
That were to take the Prior's pulpit- 
place. 
Interpret God to all of you ! Oh, ok 



FRA LIPPO LIPPL 



75 



It makes me mad to see what men 

sliall do 
Aud we in our graves ! This world's 

no blot for us 
Nor blank ; it means intensely, and 

means good : 
To find its meaning is my meat and 

drink. 
" Ay, but j^on don't so instigate to 

prayer ! " 
Strikes in the Prior: " when your 

meaning's (ilain 
It does not say to folks — remember 

matins, 
Or, mind you fast next Friday ! " 

Why' for this 
AVhat need of art at all? A skull 

and bones. 
Two bits of stick nailed cross-wise, 

or, what's best, 
A bell to chime the hour with, does 

as well. 
I painted a Saint Lawrence six months 

since 
At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine 

style : 
" How looks my painting, now the 

scaffold's down ? " 
I ask a brother: "Hugely," he re- 
turns — 
" Already not one phiz of your three 

slaves 
"Who turn the Deacon off his toasted 

side, 
But's scratched and prodded to our 

heart's content, 
The pious people have so eased their 

own 
With coming to say prayers there in 

a rage : 
We get on fast to see the bricks be- 
neath. 
Expect another job this time next 

year, 
For pity and religion grow 1' the 

crowd — 
Your painting serves its purpose ! " 

Hang the fools ! 

— That is — you'll not mistake an 

idle word 
Spoke in a huff by a poor monk. Got 

wot 
Tasting the air this spicy night which 

turns 
The unaccustomed head like Chianti 

wine ! 
Oh, the church knows ! don't misre- 

port me, now 



It's natural a poor monk out of bounds 
Should have his apt word to excuse 

himself : 
And heai'ken how I plot to make 

amends. 
I have bethought me: I shall paint a 

piece 
. • . There's for you ! Give me six 

months, then go, see 
Something in Saiit' Ambrogio's ! 

Bless tlie nuns ! 
They want a cast o' my office. I shall 

jiaint 
God in the midst. Madonna and her 

babe. 
Ringed by a bowerj', flowery angel- 
brood. 
Lilies and vestments and white faces, 

sweet 
As puff on imff of grated orris-root 
When ladies crowd to church at mid- 
summer. 
And then i' the front, of course a saint 

or two — 
Saint John, because he saA-es the 

Florentines, 
Saint Aminos;-, who puts down in 

black and white 
The convent's friends and gives them 

a long day. 
And Job, I must have him there past 

mistake, 
The man of Vz (and Us without 

the z, 
Painters who need his patience). 

Well, all these 
Secured at their devotion, up shall 

come 
Out of a corner when you least ex- 
pect. 
As one liv a dark stair into a great 

light. 
Music and talking, who but Lippo ! 

I! — 
jNIazed, motionless, and moon-struck 

— I'm the man ! 
Back I shrink — what is this I see 

and hear? 
I, caught up with my monk's things 

by mistake, 
INIy old serge gown and rope that goes 

all round, 
I, in this presence, this pure company ! 
Where's a hole, where's a corner for 

escape ? 
Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a 

thing 
Forward, puts out a soft jialm — " No' 

so fast ! " 



76 



ANDREA DEL SARTO- 



— Addresses the celestial presence, 
" nay — 

He made you and devised j^ou, after 
all, 

Tliougli he's none of you ! Could 
Saint John there, draw — 

His camel-hair make uji a painting- 
brush ? 

We come to brotlier Lippo for all that, 

Iste pcr/ccit opus ! " So, all smile — 

I shuHie sideways with my blushing 
face 

Under the cover of a hundred wings 

Thrown like a spread of kirtles when 
you're gay 

And play hot cockles, all the doors 
being shut 

Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops 

The hot-head husband ! Thus I scut- 
tle off 

To some safe bench behind, not let- 
ting go 

The palm of her, the little lily thing 

That spoke the good word for me in 
the nick. 

Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint 
Lucy, I would say. 

And so all's saved for me, and for the 
church 

A pretty picture gained. Go, six 
months hence ! 

Your hand, sir, and good-by: no 
lights, no lights ! 

The street's hushed, and I know my 
own way back. 

Don't fear me ! There's the gray 
beginning. Zooks ! 



ANDREA DEL SARTO. 

(CALLED "THE FAULTLESS PAIXT- 
ER.") 

But do not let ns quarrel any more, 
No, my Lucrezia ! bear with me for 

once : 
Sit down and all shall happen as you 

wish. 
You turn your face, but does it bring 

your heart ? 
I'll work then for your friend's friend, 

never fear. 
Treat his own subject after his own 

way, 



Fix his own time, accept too Ms own 

price. 
And shut the money into this small 

hand 
When next it takes mine. Will it? 

tenderly ? 
Oh, I'll content him, — but to-morrow, 

Love ! 
I often am much wearier than you 

think. 
This cA-ening more than usual : and It 

seems 
As if— forgive now — should you let 

me sit 
Here by the window, with your hand 

in mine, 
And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, 
Both of one mind, as married people 

nse, 
Quietly, quietly the evening through, 
I might get i\\) to-morrow to my M'ork 
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us 

try. 
To-morrow, how vou shall be glad for 

this ! 
Your soft hand is a woman of itself. 
And mine, the man's bared breast 

she curls inside. 
Don't count the time lost, neither ; 

you must serve 
For each of the liA-e pictures we re- 
quire : 
It saves a model. So ! keep looking 

so — 
My serpentining beauty, rounds on 

rounds ! 

— How could you ever prick those 

perfect ears. 
Even to put the pearl there ! oh, so 

sweet — 
My face, my moon, my everybody's 

moon. 
Which everybody looks on and calls 

his, 
And, I suppose, is looked on by in 

turn. 
While she looks — no one's: very 

dear, no less. 
You smile ? why, there's my picture 

ready made, 
There's what we painters call our 

harmony ! 
A common grayness silvers every 

thing, — 
All in a twilight, you and I alike 

— You, at the point of your first jiride 

in me 
(That's gone, you know) — but I, p»* 
every point ; 



ANDREA DEL SARTO. 



My youth, my hope, my art, being all 

toned down 
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 
There's the bell clinking from the 

chapel-top ; 
That length of convent-wall across 

the way 
Holds the trees safer, huddled more 

inside ; 
The last monk leaves the garden; 

days decrease, 
And autumn grows, autumn in every 

thing. 
Eh? the whole seems to fall into a 

shape. 
As if I saw alike my work and self 
And all that I was born to be and 

do, 
A twilight-piece. Love, we are in 

God's hand. 
How strange now, looks the life he 

makes us lead ; 
So free we seem, so fettered fast we 

are ! 
I feel he laid the fetter : let it lie ! 
This chamber, for example — turn 

your head — 
All that's behind us ! You don't un- 
derstand 
Nor care to understand about my art, 
But you can hear at least when peo- 
ple speak : 
And that cartoon, the second from the 

door 

— It is the thing, Love! so such things 

should be : 
Behold Madonna! — I am bold to say. 
I can do with my pencil what I know, 
What I see, what at bottom of my 

heart 
I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 
Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, 
I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are 

Who listened to. the Legate's talk last 

week ; 
And just as much they used to say in 

France. 
At any rate 'tis easy, all of it ! 
No sketches first, no studies, that's 

long past : 
I do what many dream of, all their 

lives, 

— Dream ? strive to do, and agonize 

to do. 
And fail in doing. I could count 

twenty such 
On twice your fingers, and not leave 

this town, 



Who strive — you don't know how 

the others strive 
To paint a little thing like that you 

smeared 
Carelessly passing with your robes 

afloat, — 
Yet do much less, so much less. Some- 
one says, 
(I know his name, no matter) — so 

much less ! 
Well, less is more, Lucrezia : I aiQ 

judged. 
There burns a truer light of God ic 

them. 
In their vexed beating stuffed and 

stopped-up brain, 
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on 

to prompt 
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's 

hand of mine. 
Their works drop groundward, but 

themselves, I know, 
Reach many a time a heaven that's 

shut to me, 
Enter and take their place there sure 

enough. 
Though they come back and cannot 

tell the world. 
My works are nearer heaven, but I 

sit here. 
The sudden blood of these men! at a 

word — 
Praise them, it boils, or blame them, 

it boils too. 
I, painting from myself and to myself. 
Know what I do, am unmoved by 

men's blame 
Or their praise either. Somebody 

remarks 
Morello's outline there is wrongly 

traced. 
His hue mistaken; what of that? or 

else, 
Rightlv traced and well ordered ; 

what of that ? 
Speak as they please, what does the 

mountain care ? 
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed 

his grasp. 
Or what's a heaven for? All is silver- 
gray, 
Placid and perfect with my art: the 

worse ! 
I know both what I want and what 

might gain ; 
And yet^ how profitless to know, to 

"sigh 
" Had I been two, another and my- 
self. 



7?t 



ANDREA DEL SARTO. 



Oiir liead would have o'eilooked the 
world ! " No doubt. 

Yonder's a work uow, of that famous 
youth 

The Trbinate who died five years ago. 

(Tis copied, George Yasari sent it 
me.) 

Well. I can fancy how he did it all, 

Pouring his soul, with kings and 

popes to see. 
jieaching. that heaven might so re- 
plenish him. 

Above and through his art — for it 
gives way; 

That arm is wrongly put — and there 
again — 

A fault to pardon in the drawing's 
lines, 

Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, 

He means right — that, a child may 
understand. 

Still, what an arm! and I could alter 
it : 

But all the play, the insight and the 
stretch — 

Out of me. out of me ! And where- 
fore out ? 

Had you enjoined them on me, given 
me soul, 

"VYe might have risen to Kafael, I and 
you. 

ZSTay, Love, you did give all I asked, 
I Think — 

;More than I merit, yes, by many 
times. 

But had you — oh, with the same per- 
fect brow. 

And perfect eyes, and more than per- 
fect mouth, 

And the low voice my soul hears, as 
a bird 

The fowler's pipe, and follows to the 
snare — 

Had you. with these the same, but 
brought a mind ! 

Some women do so. Had the mouth 

there urgeil 
' God and the glory ! never care for 
gain. 

The present by the future, what is 
that ? 

Li^-e for fame, side by side with Ag- 
nolo ! 

Rafael is wiiiting : up to God, all 
three ! '" 

I might have done it for you. So it 
seems : 

Perhaps not. All is as God over- 
rules. 



Beside, incentives come from the soul's 

self : 
The rest avail not. Why do I need 

you '? 
What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo ? 
In this world, who can do a thing, 

will not ; 
And who would do it, cannot, I per- 
ceive : 
Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, 

too, the power — 
And tims we half-men struggle. At 

the end, 
God, I conclude, compensates, pun- 
ishes. 
'Tis safer for me, if the award be 

strict, 
That I am something underrated here, 
Poor this long while, despiseil, to 

speak the truth. 
I dared not. do vou know, leave home 

all day. 
For fear of chancing on the Paris 

lords. 
The best is when they pass and look 

aside ; 
But they speak sometimes : I must 

bear it all. 
Well may they speak ! That Francis, 

that first time. 
And that long festal vear at Fontaine- 

bleau ! ' 
I surely then could sometimes leave 

the ground. 
Put on the glory. Rafael's daily wear. 
In that humane great monarch's gold- 
en look, — 
One finger in his beard or twisted 

curl 
Over his month's good mark that 

made the smile. 
One arm about my shoulder, round 

my neck, 
The jingle of his gold chain in my 

ear, 
I painting proudly with his breath on 

me. 
All his court round him, seeing with 

his eyes. 
Such frank French eyes, and such a 

fire of souls 
Profuse, my hand kept plying by 

those iiearts, — 
And, best of all, this, this, this fa':e 

beyond. 
This in the background, waiting on 

niy work. 
To crown the issue with a last re 

ward ! 



ANDREA DEL SARTO. 



79 



A good time, was it uot, my kingly 

clays ? 
And luui you uot grown restless . . . 

but I kucw — 
'Tis done and jiast ; 'twas right, my 

instinrt said ; 
Too live tlie life grew, golden and not 

gray : 
And I'm the weak-ej^ed bat no sun 

slioiild tempt 
Out of the grange whose four walls 

make his world. 
How etnild it end in any other way ? 
Yon called me, and I eame home to 

your heart. 
The triumph was, to have ended 

there ; then, if 
I reached it ere the triumph, what is 

lost ? 
Let my hands frame your face in 

your hair's gold. 
Yon beautiful Luerezia that are mine ! 
" Rafael did this, Andrea painted 

that ; 
The Roman's is the better when you 

pray, 
But still the other's Virgin was his 

wife ■' — 
Men will excuse me. I am glad to 

judge 
Both pictures in your presence ; 

clearer grows_ 
iSIy better fortune, x resolve to think. 
For, ilo you know, LucreSia. as God 

lives. 
Said one day Agnoio. his very self. 
To Rafael . . I have known it all 

these years . . . 
(When the young man was flaming 

out his thoughts 
Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see. 
Too lifted up in heart because of 

it) 
" Friend, there's a certain sorry little 

scrub 
Goes up and down our Florence, 

none cares how. 
Who, were he set to plan and exe- 
cute 
As you are, j)ricked on by your 

pojies and kings. 
Would bring the sweat into that 

brow of yours ! " 
To Rafael's ! — And indeed the arm 

is wrong. 
I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to 

see, 
Give the chalk here — quick, thus the 

line should go I 



Ay, but the soul ! he's Rafael ! rub it 

out! 
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the 

truth. 
(What he'? why, who but INIichel 

Agnoio ? 
Do you forget already words lik« 

those ? ) 
If reallv there was such a chance si 

lost,— 
Is, whether you're — not grateful — 

but more pleased. 
Well, let nie think so. And you smile 

indeed ! 
This hour has been an hour ! An- 
other smile ? 
If you woidd sit thus by me every 

night 
I should work better, do vou compre- 
hend ? 
I mean that I should earn more, give 

you more. 
See, it is settled dusk now ; there's a 

star ; 
Morello's gone, the watch-lights show 

the wall. 
The cue-owls speak the name we 

call them by. 
Come from the window, love, — ccme 

in, at last. 
Inside the melancholy little house 
We built to De so gay with. God is 

ust 
Kins Francis may forgive me : oft at 

nights 
When I look up from painting, eve? 

tired out. 
The walls become illumined, brick 

from brick 
Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce 

bright gold, 
That gold of his I did cement them 

with ! 
Let us but love each other. Must 

you go ? 
That cousin here again ? he waits 

outside ? 
Must see you — you, and not with 

me ? Those loans ? 
More gaming debts to pay? you smiled 

for that ? 
Well, let smiles buy me ! have you 

more to spend ? 
While hand and eye and something 

of a heart 
Are left me, work's my ware, and 

what's it worth ? 
I'll pay my fancy. Only let me 

sit 



80 



THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB. 



The gray remainder of the evening 

out, 
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly 
How I couUl paint, were I but back 

in France, 
One picture, just one more — the Vir- 
gin's face, 
Not your's this time ! I want you at 

my side 
To hear them — that is, Michel Ag- 

nolo — 
Judge all I do and tell you of its 

worth. 
Will you ? To-morrow satisfy your 

friend. 
I take the subjects for his corridor. 
Finish the portrait out of hand — 

there, thcr(>, 
And throw him in another thing or 

two 
If he demurs : the whole should prove 

enough 
To pay for this same cousin's freak. 

Beside, 
What's better and what's all I care 

about. 
Get you the thirteen sciidi for the 

ruff! 
Love, does that please you ? Ah, but 

what does he, 
The cousin ' what uoes ue to Dlease 
vou more ' 

T am grown oeacefui as old age to- 
il ighr 
regret little, a would change still 

^ess 
Since tnere my past life lies, why 

alter it ? 
The very wrong to Francis! — it is 

true 
I took his coin, was tempted and com- 

l)li(Hl, 
And built this house and sinned, and 

all is said. 
Mj' father and my mother died of 

want. 
Well, had I riches of my own ? you 

see 
How one gets rich ! Let each one 

hear his lot. 
They were born poor, lived poor, and 

poor they died : 
And I have labored somewhat in ray 

time 
And not been paid profusely. Some 

good son 
Paint my two hundred pictures — let 

hiin try I 



No doubt, there's something strikes a 

balance. Yes, 
You loved me quite enough, it seems 

to-night. 
This must suffice me here. What 

would one have ? 
In heaven, perhaj^s, new chances, one 

more t^hance — 
Four great walls in the New Jerusa 

lem. 
Meted on each side by the angel's 

reed, 
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me 
To cover — the three first without a 

wife, 
While I have mine! So — still they 

overcome 
Because there's still Lucrezia, — as I 

choose. 

Again the cousin's whistle I Go. 
my love. 



THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS 
TOMB AT SAINT PRAX- 
ED'S v^iiuRCIi 

ROME. 15— 

Vanity saith the preacber. "vanitv 

Draw rounu my oed ; iS Anselm keep- 
ing bacK ? 

Nephews — sons mine ... ah God, I 
know not ! Well — 

She, men would have to be yoiir 
mother once, 

Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she 
was ! 

What's done is done, and she is dead 
beside, 

Dead long ago, and I am Bishop 
since, 

And as she died so must we die our- 
selves. 

And thence ye may perceive the 
world's a dream. 

Life, how and what is it ? As here I 
lie 

In this state-chamber, dying by de- 
grees, 

Hours and long hours in the dead 
night, I ask 

" Do I live, am I dead '"' Peace, 
peace seems all. 



Tlir: BISHOP ORIJKRS HIS TOMB. 



81 



Saint Praxod's (!ver was the church 

for peace ; 
And so, alioiit this tomb of mine. I 

fouiilit 
Witli tooth and nail to save my niche, 

ye know : 

— Ohl Gandolf cozened me, despite 

my care ; 
Slirewd was that snatcli from out the 

corner South 
He graced his carrion with, God curse 

the same ! 
Yet still my niche is not so cramped 

hut thence 
One sees the pulpit on the epistle- 
side, 
And somewhat of the choir, those 

silent seats, 
And up into the aiiry dome where live 
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to 

lurk ; 
And I shall fill my slab of basalt 

there. 
And 'neath my tabernacle take my 

rest, 
With those nine columns round me, 

two and two. 
The odd one at my feet where Anselm 

stands : 
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, 

the ripe 
As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty 

pulse. 

— Old Gandolf with his paltry onion- 

stone. 
Put me where I may look at him ! 

True peach. 
Rosy and flawless : how I earned the 

prize ! 
Draw close : that conflagration of my 

church 

— Wliat then ? So much was saved 

if aught were missed ! 
My sons, ye would not be my death ? 

Go dig 
The white-grape vineyard where the 

oil-press stood. 
Drop water gently till the surface 

sink. 
And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know 

not, I ! . . . 
Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves 

soft, 
And corded up in a tight olive-frail. 
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, 
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the 

nape, 
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's 

breast . . . 



Sons, all have I bequeathed you, 

villas, all, 
That brave Frascati villa with its 

bath. 
So, let the blue lump poise between 

my knees, 
Like God the Father's globe on both 

his hands 
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so 

gay, 
For Gandolf shall not choose but see 

and burst ! 
Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our 

years : 
Man goetli to the grave, and where is 

he? 
Did I say, basalt for my slab, sons ? 

Black — 
'Twas ever antique-black I meant ! 

How else 
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come 

beneath ? 
The bass-relief in bronze ye promised 

me, 
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, 

and perchance 
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or 

so, 
The Saviour at his sermon on the 

mount, 
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one 

Pan 
Ready to twitch the Nymph's last 

garment off, 
And Moses with the tables . . . but I 

know 
Yc mark me not ! What do they 

whisper thee. 
Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, 

ye hope 
To revel down my villas while I gasp 
Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy 

travertine 
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top 

chuckles at ! 
Nay, boys, j-e love me — all of jasper, 

then ! 
'Tis jasjier ye stand i^ledged to, lest 

I grieve 
My bath must needs be left behind 

alas ! 
One block, iiure green as a pistachio- 
nut, 
There's plenty jasper somewhere in 

the world — 
And have I not Saint Praxad's ear to 

pray 
Horses for ye, and brown Greek 

manuscripts, 



82 



A TOCCATA OF GALUPPrS. 



And mistresses with great smooth 

marbly limbs ? 
— That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, 
Clioice Latin, jiicked phrase, Tally's 

every word, 
No gaudy ware like Gandolf 's second 

line — 
TuUy, my masters ? Ulpian serves 

his need ! 
And then how I shall lie through cen- 
turies. 
And hear the blessed mutter of the 

mass. 
And see God made and eaten all day 

long, 
And feel the steady candle-flame, and 

taste 
Good strong thick stupefying inceuse- 

suioke ! 
For as I lie here, hours of the dead 

night, 
Dying in state and by such slow de- 
grees, 
I fold my arms as if they clasped a 

crook, 
And stretch my feet forth straight as 

stone can point. 
And let the bedclothes, for a mort- 

cloth, drop 
Into great laps and folds of sculptor's 

work : 
And as yon tapers dwindle, and 

strange thoughts 
Grow, with a certain humming in ray 

ears, 
About Kie life before I lived this life. 
And this life too, popes, cardinals, 

and priests. 
Saint Praxed at his sermon on the 

mount, 
Your tall pale mother with her talk- 
ing eyes. 
And new-found agate urns as fresh 

as day, 
And marble's language, Latin pure, 

discreet, 
- Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our 

friend ? 



No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best ! 

Evil and brief hath been mv pilgrim- 
age. 

All lapii<, all, sons ! Else I give the 
Pope 

My villas ! "Will ye ever eat my 
heart? 

Ever your eyes were as a lizard's 
quick, 

They glitter like your mother's for 
my soul. 

Or ye would heighten my impover- 
ished frieze, 

Piece out its starved design, and fill 
my vase 

With grai^es, and add a vioor and a 
Term, 

And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx 

That in his struggle throws the thyr- 
sus down, 

To comfoi't me on my entablature 

Whereon I am to lie till I must ask 

"Do I live? am I dead?" There, 
leave me, there ! 

For ye have stabbed me with ingrati- 
tude 

To death : ye wish it — God, ye wish 
it! Stone — 

Gritstone, a-crumble ! Clammy 
squares which sweat 

As if the corpse they keep were ooz- 
ing through — 

And no more lapis to delight the 
world ! 

Well go ! I bless ye. Fewer tapers 
there, 

But in a row: and, going, turn your 
backs 

— Ay, like deiDarting altar-minis- 
trants, 

And leave me in my church, the 
church for peace. 

That I may watch at leisure if he 
leers — 

Old Gandclf at me, from his onion- 
stone. 

As still he envied me, so fair she 
was ! 



A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S. 



Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find ! 

1 can hardly misconceive you ; it would prove me deaf and blind: 
But, although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mlud I 



A TOCCATA OF GALUPPT'S. 83 

ir. 
Here yoii come with your old music, and here's all tbe good it brings. 
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings, 
Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings ? 

III. 

Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by . . . what you call 
. . . Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival: 
I was never out of England — it's as if I saw it all. 



Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May ? 
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-daj', 
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say ? 

V. 

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red, — 

On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed. 

O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head ? 

VI. 

Well, and it was graceful of them : they'd break talk off and afford 
^She, to bite her mask's black velvet, he, to finger on his sword, 
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord ? 

VII. 

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh. 
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions — "Must we 

die?" 
Those commiserating sevenths — " Life might last ! we can but try ! " 

VIII. 

"Were you happy?" — "Yes." — "And are you still as happy?" — "Yes. 

And you ? ' ' 
— "Then, more kisses!" — "Did /stop them, when a million seemed so 

few ? " 
Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to ! 

IX. 

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say I 
" Brave Galuppi ! that was music ! gootl alike at grave and gay I 
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play ! " 

X. 

Then they left you for their pleasure : till in due time, one by one, 
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone, 
Death stejiped tacitly, and took them where they never see the sun. 

XI. 

But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve, 
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve, 
In you come with your cold music till I creep through every nerve. 

XII. 

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned: 
"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned. 
The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a soul can be discerned. 



84 



HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY. 



" Yours for instance: you know physics, sometliing of geology, 
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree; 
Biittertiies may dread extinction, — you'll not die, it cannot be ! 



" As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop, 
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop: 
"What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop ? 



" Dust and ashes ! " So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold. 
Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what's become of all the gold 
Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? I feel chilly and grown old. 



HOW IT STRIKES A CON- 
TEMPORARY. 

I ONLY knew one poet in my life : 
And this, or something like it, was 
his way. 

You saw go up and down Vallado- 

lid, 
A man of mark, to know next time 

you saw. 
His very serviceable suit of black 
Was courtly once and conscientious 

still. 
And many might have worn it, though 

none did : 
The cloak, that somewhat shone and 

showed the threads. 
Had purpose, and the ruff, signifi- 
cance. 
He walked, and tapped the pavement 

with his cane. 
Scenting the world, looking it full in 

face : 
An old dog, bald and blindish, at his 

heels. 
They turned up, now, the alley by 

the church, 
That leads no whither ; now, they 

breathed themselves 
On the main promenade just at the 

wrong time. 
You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat, 
Making a peaked shade blacker than 

itself 
Against the single window spared 

some house 
Intact yet with its mouldered Moor- 
ish work, — 



Or else surprise the ferrel of his stick 
Trying the mortar's temper 'tween 

the chinks 
Of some new shop a-building, French 

^ and fine. 
He stood and watched the cobbler at 

his trade, 
The man who slices lemons into drink, 
The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the 

boys 
That volunteer to heli> him turn its 

winch. 
He glanced o'er books on stalls with 

half an eye. 
And flj'-leaf ballads on the vendor's 

string. 
And broad-edge bold-print posters by 

the wall. 
He took such cognizance of men and 

things. 
If any beat a horse, you felt he saw; 
If any cursed a woman, he took note; 
Yet stared at nobody, — you stared at 

him. 
And found, less to your pleasure than 

surprise, 
He seemed to know you and expect 

as much. 
So, next time that a neighbor's 

tongue was loosed. 
It marked the shameful and notoriou,<' 

fact 
We had among us, not so much a 

spy, 

As a recording chief-inquisitor. 

The town's true master if the town 

but knew ! 
We merely kept a governor for form, 
While this man walked about and 

took account 



now IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY. 



85 



Of all thought, said and acted, then 

went home, 
And wrote it iiiUy to our Lord the 

King 
Who has an itch to know things, he 

knows whj', 
And reads them in his bedroom of a 

night. 
Oh, you might smile ! there wanted 

not a touch, 
A tang of . . . well, it was not wholly 

ease, 
As back into your mind the man's 

look came. 
Stricken in years a little, such a brow 
His eyes had to live under ! — clear 

as tiint 
On either side o' the formidable nose 
Curved,-cut and colored like an eagle's 

claw. 
Had he to do with A.'s surprising 

fate? 
When altogether old B. disappeared. 
And young C. got his mistress, — was't 

our friend, 
His letter to the King, that did it 

all? 
What paid the bloodless man for so 

much pains ? 
Our Lord the King has favorites mani- 
fold, 
And shifts his ministry some once a 

month ; 
Our city gets new governors at 

whiles, — 
But never word or sign, that I could 

hear. 
Notified, to this man about the streets. 
The King's approval of those letters 

conned 
The last thing duly at the dead of 

night. 
Did the man love his office ? Frowned 

our Lord, 
Exhorting when none heard — "Be- 
seech me not ! 
Too far above my people, — beneath 

me ! 
I set the watch, — how should the 

people know ? 
Forget them, keep me all the more in 

mind 1 " 
Was some such understanding 'twixt 

the two ? 

I found no truth in one report at 
least — 
That if you tracked him to his home, 
down lanes 



Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to 

pace. 
You found he ate his supper in a 

room 
Blazing with lights, four Titians on 

the wall. 
And twenty naked girls to change his 

plate ! 
Poor man, he lived another kind of 

life 
In that new stuccoed third house by 

the bridge. 
Fresh-painted, rather smart than 

otherwise ! 
The whole sti-eet might o'erlook him 

as he sat. 
Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's 

back, 
Playing a decent cribbage with his 

maid 
(Jacynth, you're sure her name was) 

o'er the cheese 
And fruit, three red halves of starved 

winter-pears. 
Or treat of radishes in April. Nine, 
Ten, struck the church clock, straight 

to bed went he. 

My father like the man of sense he 

was. 
Would poin him out to me a dozen 

times 
" St — St," n 3'd whisper, " the Corre- 

gidor ' 
E had been used to think that person- 
age 
Was one with lacquered breeches, 

lustrous belt. 
And feathers like a forest in his hat. 
Who blew a trumpet and proclaimed 

the news. 
Announced the bull-fights, gave each 

church its turn. 
And memorized the miracle in vogue! 
He had a great observance from us 

boys ; 
We were in error ; that was not the 

man. 

I'd like now, yet had haply been 
afraid, 

To have just looked, wiien this man 
came to die. 

And seen who lined the clean gay 
garret sides. 

And stood about the neat low truckle- 
bed. 

With the heavenly manner of reliev- 
ing guard. 



86 



PROTUS. 



Here had been, mark, the general-in- 

chief. 
Through a whole campaign of the 

world's life and death, 
Doing the King's work all the dim 

day long, 
In his old coat and up to knees in 

mud, 
Smoked like a herring, dining on a 

crust, — 
And, now the day was won, relieved 

at once ! 
No further show or need of that old 

coat. 
You are sure, for one thing! Bless 

us, all the while 
How sprucelj'^ we are dressed out, 

you and I ! 
A second, and the angels alter that. 
Well, I could never write averse, — 

could you ? 
Let's to the Prado and make the most 

of time. 



PROTUS. 

Among these latter busts we count 
by scores, 

Half-eraperors and quarter-emperors, 

Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose- 
thonged vest, 

Loric and low-browed Gorgon on the 
breast, — 

One loves a baby face, with violets 
there, 

Violets instead of laurel in the hair. 

As those were all the little locks could 
bear. 

Now read here. " Protus ends a pe- 
riod 
Of empery beginning with a god ; 
Born in the porphyry chamber at 

Byzant, 
Queens by his cradle, proud and min- 

istrant : 
And if he quickened breath there, 

t'would like fire 
Pantingly through the dim vast realm 

transpire. 
A fame that he was missing, spread 

afar : 
The world, from its four corners, rose 

in war. 



Till he was borne out on a balcony 

To i:)acify the world when it should 
see. 

The captains ranged before him, one, 
his hand 

Made baby points at, gaiued the chief 
command. 

And day by day more beautiful he 
grew 

In shape, all said, in feature and in hue. 

While young Greek sculptors gaz- 
ing on the child 

Became, with old Greek sculpture, 
reconciled. 

Already sages labored to condense 

In easj' tomes a life's experience : 

And artists took grave counsel to 
impart 

In one breath and one hand-sweep, 
all their art, 

And make his graces prompt as blos- 
soming 

Of plentifully watered palms in spring: 

Since well beseems it, whoso mounts 
the throne. 

For beauty, knowledge, strength, 
shoukl stand alone. 

And mortals love the letters of his 
name." 

— Stop ! Have you turned two pages ? 

Still the same. 
New reign, same date. The scribe 

goes on to say 
How that same year, on such a month 

and day, 
" John the Pannonian, groundedly 

believed 
A blacksmith's bastard, whose hard 

hand reprieved 
The Empire from its fate the year 

before, — 
Came, had a mind to take the crown, 

and wore 
The same for six years (during which 

the Huns 
Kept off their fingers from us), till 

his sons 
Put something in his liquor" — and 

so forth. 
Then a new reign. Stay — "Take at 

its just worth " 
(Subjoins an annotator) " What I give 
As hearsay. Some think, John let 

Protus live 
And slip away. 'Tis said, he reached 

man's age 
At some blind northern court ; made 

first a page, 



MASTER nUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA. 



87 



Then tutor to the children ; last, of 
use 

About the hunting stables. I deduce 

He wrote the little tract ' On worm- 
ing dogs,' 

^Yhe^eof the name in sundry cata- 
logues 

Is extant yet. A Protus of the race 

Is rumored to have died a monk in 
Thrace, — 

And, if the same, he reached senili- 
ty-" 

Here's John the smith's rough-ham- 
mered head. Great eye. 

Gross jaw and griped lips do what 
granite can 

To give you the crown-grasper. 
What a man ! 



MASTER HUGUES OF SAXE- 
GOTHA. 



Hist, but a word, fair and soft ! 
Forth and be judged, Master 
Hugues ! 
Answer the question I've put you so 
oft : 
"What do you mean by your moun- 
tainous fugues ? 
See, we're alone in the loft, — 



I, the poor organist here, 

Hugues, the composer of note. 
Dead though, and done with, this 
many a year : 
Let's have a colloquy, something to 
quote, 
Make the world prick up its ear ! 



See, the church empties apace : 

Fast they extinguish the lights. 
Hallo there, sacristan ! Five min- 
utes' grace ! 
Here's a crank pedal wants set- 
ting to rights. 
Balks one of holding the b£»e. 



See, our huge house of the sounds. 

Hushing its hundreds at once, 
Bids the last loiterer back to his 
bounds ! 
— Oh, you may challenge them ! 
not a response 
Get the church-saints on their rounds! 



(Saints go their rounds, who shall 
doubt ? 
— March, with the moon to admire, 
Up nave, down chancel, turn tran- 
sept about. 
Supervise all betwixt pavement and 
sjiire. 
Put rats and mice to the rout — 



Aloys and Jurien and Just — 

Order things back to their place. 
Have a sharjD eye lest the candlesticks 
rust. 
Rub the church-plate, darn the sac- 
rament-lace. 
Clear the desk-velvet of dust.) 



Here's your book, younger folks 
shelve ! 
Played I not off-hand and run- 
ningly. 
Just now, your masterpiece, hard 
number twelve ? 
Here's what should strike, could 
one handle it cunningly : 
Help the axe, give it a helve ! 



Page after page as I played. 

Every bar's rest, where one wipes 
Sweat from one's brow, I looked up 
and surveyed. 
O'er my three claviers, yon forest 
of pipes 
Whence you still peeped in the shade 



Sure you were wishful to speak. 

You, with brow ruled like a score, 
Yes, and eyes buried in pits on each 
cheek. 
Like two great breves, as they 
wrote them of j'ore. 
Each side that bar, your straight beak! 



88 



MASTER HUGVES OF SAXE-GOTHA. 



Sure you said — "Good, the mere 
notes ! 
Still, could'st thou take my intent, 
Know what procured me our Com- 
pany's votes — 
A master were lauded and sciolists 
shent, 
Parted the sheep from the goats ! " 



Well then, speak up, never flinch ! 

Quick, ere my candle's a snuff 
— Burnt, do you see ? to its uttermost 
inch — 
I believe in you, but that's not 
enough : 
Give my conviction a clinch ! 



First you deliver your phrase 

— Nothing propound, that I see, 
Fit in itself for much blame or much 
praise — 
Answered no less, where no answer 
needs be : 
Off start the Two on their ways. 

XIII. 

Straight must a Third interpose, 

Volunteer needlessly help ; 
In strikes a Fourth, a Fifth thrusts in 
his nose. 
So the cry's open, the kennel's 
a-yelp, 
Argument's hot to the close. 



One dissertates, he is candid ; 
Two must discept, — has distin- 
guished ; 
Three helps the couple, if ever yet 
man did ; 
Four protests ; Five makes a dart at 
the thing wished : 
Back to One, goes the case bandied. 



One says his say with a difference ; 
More of expounding, explaining ! 
All now is wrangle, abuse, and vocif- 
erance ; 
Now there's a truce, all's subdued, 
self-restraining : 
Five, though, stands out all the stiffer 
hence. 



XVI. 

One is incisive, corrosive ; 
Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepi- 
tant ; 
Three makes rejoinder, expansive, 
explosive ; 
Four overbears them all, strident 
and strepitant : 
Five . . . O Dauaides, O Sieve ! 



Now, they ply axes and crowbars ; 

Now, they prick pins at a tissue 
Fine as a skein of the casuist Escobar's 

Worked on the bone of a lie. 'To 
what issue ? 
Where is our gain at the Two-bars ? 

XVIIl. 

Estfuga, volvitur rota. 
On we drift : where looms the dim 
port ? 
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, contrib 
ute their quota ; 
Something is gained, if one caugh; 
but the import ; 
Show it us, Hugues of Saxe-Gotha ! 



What with affirming, denj'ing, 

Holding, risposting, subjoining, 
All's like . . . it's like . . . for an in 
stance I'm trying . . . 
There ! See our roof, its gilt mould, 
ing and groining 
Under those spider-webs lying ! 



So your fugue broadens and thickens, 
Greatens and deepens and length- 
ens. 
Till we exclaim — " But where's 
music, the dickens ? 
Blot ye the gold, while your spider' 
web strengthens 
— Blacked to the stoutest of tickens? " 



XXI. 

I for man's effort am zealous : 

Prove me such censure unfounded ! 
Seems it surprising a lover grows 
jealous — 
Hopes 'twas for something, his or- 
gan-pipes sounded, 
Tiring three boys at the bellows ? 



ABT VOGLER. 



89 



XXII. 

Is it yotir moral of Life ? 

Such a web, simple and subtle, 
"Weave we on earth here in impotent 
strife. 
Backward and forward each throw- 
ing his shuttle, 
Death ending all with a knife ? 

XXIII. 

Over our heads truth and nature — 
Still our life's zigzags and dodges, 
Ins and outs, weaving a new legisla- 
ture — 
God's gold just shining its last 
where that lodges. 
Palled beneath man's usurpature. 

XXIV. 

So we o'ershroud stars and roses. 

Cherub and trophy and garland ; 
Nothings grow something which 
quietly closes 
Heaven's earnest eye : not a glimpse 
of the far land 
Gets through our comments and 
glozes. 



Ah, but traditions, inventions 

(Say we and make up a visage), 
So many men with such various in- 
tentions, 
Down the past ages, must know 
more than this age ! 
Leave we the web its dimensions ! 

XXVI. 

"Who thinks Hugues wrote for the 
deaf, 
Proved a mere mountain in labor ? 



Better submit ; try again ; what's the 

clef? 
'Faith, 'tis no trifle for pijie and for 

tabor — 
Four tiats, the minor in F. 

XXVII. 

Friend, your fugue taxes the finger : 
Learning it once, who would lose 
it? 
Yet all the while a misgiving will 
linger, 
Truth's golden o'er us although we 
refuse it — 
Nature, through cobwebs we string 
her. 

XXVIII. 

Hugues ! I advise mea pcend 

(Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon) 
Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, 
clear the arena ! 
Say the word, straight I unstop the 
full-organ, 
Blare out the 7node Palestrinu. 

XXIX. 

"While in the roof, if I'm right there, 
. . . Lo you, the wick in the socket ! 
Hallo, you sacristan, show us a light 
there ! 
Down it dips, gone like a rocket. 
"What, you want, do you, to come una- 
wares, 
Sweeping the church up for first 

morning-prayers. 
And find a poor devil has ended his 

cares 
At the foot of your rotten-runged rat- 
riddled stairs ? 
Do I carry the moon in my pocket ? 



ABT VOGLER. 



(AFTER HE HAS BEEX EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRU- 
MENT OF HIS INVENTION.) 



Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, 
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, 

Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed 
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, 



90 ABT VOGLER. 



Man, brute, reptile, fly, — alien of end and of aim, 
Adverse, each from"t,he other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,— 

Should rush into sight at once as he named the IneiTable Name, 
And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved ! 



Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine. 

This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise ! 
Ah, one and alii how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, 

Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their Tuaster his praise ! 
And one would bui-y his brow with a blind plunge down to hell, 

Burrow a while and build, broad on the roots of things. 
Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, 

Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs. 

III. 
A.nd another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, 

Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, 
Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, 

Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest ; 
For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, 

"When a great illumination surprises a festal night — 
Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire) 

Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight. 



In sight ? Not half ! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth. 

Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I ; 
And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth. 

As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky : 
Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine. 

Not a point nor peak but found, but fixed its wandering star ; 
Meteor-moons, balls of blaze : and they did not pale nor pine. 

For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far. 

V. 

Nay more ; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow, 

Presences plain in the place ; or, fresh from the Protoplast, 
Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow. 

Lured now to be^in and live, in a house to their liking at last ; 
Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone. 

But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new : 
What never had been, was now ; what was, as it shall be anon ; 

And what is, — shall I say, matched both ? for I was made perfect too. 

VI. 

All through my keys that gave-their sounds to a wish of my soul. 

All through "my soul that praised as its wish lie wed visibly forth, 
All through nnisic^ind me ! For think, had I jiainted the whole, 

Wliy, there it had stood, to see, nor the ]u-ocess so wonder-worth. 
Had i written the same, made verse — still, effect proceeds from cause, 

Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told ; 
It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws. 

Painter and poet are proud, in the artist-list enrolled ; — ' 



ABT VOGLER. 91 



But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, 

Existent behind all laws : that made theui, and, lo, they are ! 
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man. 

That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. 
Consider it well : each tone of our scale in itself is naught ; 

It is everywhere in the world — loud, soft, and all is said : 
Give it to me to nse ! I mix it with two in my thought, 

And, there ! Ye have heard and seen : consider and bow the head I 

VIII. 

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared : 

Gone ! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow ; 
For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared, 

That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go. 
Never to be again ! But many more of the kind 

As good, nay, better perchance : is this your comfort to me ? 
To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind 

To the same, same self, same love, same God : ay, what was, shall be. 

IX. 

Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name ? 

Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands ! 
"What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same ? 

Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands ? 
There shall never be one lost good ! "What was, shall live as before ; 

The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound ; 
"What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more ; 

On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a perfect round. 

X. 

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist ; 

Not its semblance, but itself ; no beauty, nor good, nor power 
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist, 

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard. 

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, 
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; 

Enough t\i-^^. he heard it once : we shall hear it by and by- 

XI. 

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence 

For the fulness tf the days ? Have we withered or agonized ? 
Why else was t^e pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence 2 

Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be pri;K««d? 
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, 

Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe ■ 
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear ; 

The rest may reason and welcome ; 'tis we musicians know. 

XII. 

Well, it is earth with me ; silence resumes her reign : 

I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. 
Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, 

Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor, — yes, 
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground. 

Surveying a while the heights I rolled from into the deep ; 
Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, 

The C Major of this life : so, now I will try to sleep. 



92 



TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA. 



TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA. 



I woKDER do you feel to-day 
As I have felt since, hand in hand, 

We sat down on the grass, to stray 
In sjiirit better through the land, 

This morn of Rome and May ? 



For me, I touched a thought, I know. 

Has tantalized me many times 
(Like turns of thread the spiders 
throw 
Mocking across our path), for 
rhymes 
To catch at and let go. 



Help me to hold it ! First it left 
The yellowing fennel, run to seed 

There, branching from the brick- 
work's cleft. 
Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed 

Took up the floating weft, 



Where one small orange cup amassed 
Five beetles, — blind and green they 
grope 

Among the honey-meal : and last, 
Everywhere on the grassy slope, 

I traced it. Hold it fast ! 



The champaign with its endless fleece 
Of feathery grasses everywhere ! 

Silence and passion, joy and peace. 
An everlasting wash of air — 

Rome's ghost since her decease. 



•Such life here, through such lengths 
of hours, 

Such miracles performed in play, 
5ut'h primal naked forms of flowers. 

Such letting nature have her way 
W^hile heaven looks from its towers ! 



How say you ? Let us, O my dove. 
Let lis be unashamed of soul, 

As earth lies bare to heaven above ! 
How is it under our control 

To love or not to love ? 



I would that you were all to me, 

You that are just so much, no more. 

Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor 

free ! 

Where does the fault lie? What 

the core 

O' the wound, since wound must be ' 



I would I could adopt your will. 
See with your eyes, and set my 
heart 
Beating by yours, and drink my fill 
At your soul's springs, — your part, 
my part 
In life, for good and ill. 



No. I yearn upward, touch you 
close, 
Then stand away. I kiss your 
cheek, 
Catch your soul's warmth, — I pluck 
the rose 
And love it more than tongue can 
speak — 
Then the good minute goes. 



Already how am I so far 
Out of that minute ? Must I go 

Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, 
Onward, whenever light winds 
blow. 

Fixed by no friendly star ? 



Just when I seemed about to learn \ 
W^here is the thread now ? Off 
again ! 

The old trick ! Only I discern — 
Infinite passion, and the jJain 

Of finite hearts that yearn. 



DE GUSTIBUS — " 



Your ghost will walk, you lover of 
trees 
(If our loves remain). 
In an English lane. 
By a cornfield-side a-flutter with pop' 
pies. 



THE GVARDfAN-ANGEL. 



93 



Hark, those two in the hazel cop- 
pice — 
A boy and a girl, if the good fates 
please. 
Making love, say, — 
The happier they ! 
Draw yourself up from the light of 

the moon, 
And let them pass, as they will too 
soon, 
With the beanflower's boon, 
And the blackbird's tune, 
And May, and June ! 



What I love best in all the world 

Is a castle, preciiiice-encurled. 

In a gash of the wind-grieved Apen- 

nine. 
Or look for me, old fellow of mine 
(If I get my head from out the mouth 
O' the grave, and loose my spirit's 

bands. 
And come again to the land of lands). 
In a seaside house to the farther 

South, 
Where the baked cicala dies of 

drouth. 
And one sharp tree — 'tis a cypress — 

stands, 
By the many hundred years red- 
rusted, 
Eough, iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'er- 

crusted. 
My sentinel to guard the sands 
To the water's edge. For, what ex- 
pands 
Before the house, but the great 

opaque 
Blue breadth of sea without a break ? 
AVhile, in the house, forever crumbles 
Some fragment of the frescoed walls, 
From blisters where a scorpion 

sprawls. 
A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles 
Down on the pavement, green-flesh 

melons. 
And says there's news to-day, — the 

king 
AYas shot at, touched in the liver- 
wing. 
Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling: 
— She hopes they have not caught the 

felons. 
Italy, my Italy ! 

Queen Mary's saying serves for me — 
(When fortune's malice 
Lost her, Calais) 



Open my heart and you will see 
Graved inside of it, " Italy." 
Such lovers old are I and she : 
So it always was, so shall ever b« I 



THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL. 

A PICTURE AT FANO. 



Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou 
only leave 
That child, when thou hast done 
with him, for me ! 
Let me sit all the day here, that when 
eve 
Shall find performed thy special 
ministry. 
And time come for departure, thou, 

suspending 
Thy flight, may'st see another child 
for tending. 
Another still to quiet and retrieve. 

II. 

Then I shall feel thee step one step, 
no more. 
From where thou standest now, to 
where I gaze. 
— And suddenly my head is covered 
o'er 
With those wings, white above the 
child who prays 
Now on that tomb -^ and I shall feel 

thee guarding 
Me, out of all the world; for me, dis- 
carding 
Yon heaven thy home, that waits 
and opes its door. 

in. 
I would not look uji thither past thy 
head 
Because the door opes, like that 
child, I know. 
For I should have thy gracious face 
instead. 
Thou bird of God ! And wilt thou 
bend me low 
Like him, and lay, like his, my hands 

together. 
And lift them up to pray, and gently 
tether 
Me, as thy lamb there, with thy 
garment's spread ? 



'M 



EVELYN HOPE. 



If this was ever granted, I would 
rest 
My head beneath thine, while thy 
healing hands 
Close-covered both my ej^es beside 
thy breast, 
Pressing the brain which too much 
thought expands, 
Back to its proper size again, and 

smoothing 
Distortion down till every nerve had 
soothing. 
And all lay quiet, happy, and sup- 
pressed. 



How soon all worldly wrong would 
be repaired ! 
I think how I should view the 
earth and skies 
And sea, when once again my brow 
was bared 
After thy healing, with such differ- 
ent eyes. 
O world, as God has made it ! All is 

beauty : 
And knowing this is love, and love is 
duty. 
What further may be sought for or 
declared ? 



Guercino drew this angel I saw 
teach 
(Alfred, dear friend !) — that little 
child to pray, 
Holding the little hands up, each to 
each 
Pressed gently, — with his own 
head turned away 
Over the earth where so much lay be- 
fore him 
Of work to do, though heaven was 
opening o'er him. 
And he was left at Fano by the 
beach. 

vir. 
We were at Fano, and three times we 
went 
To sit and see him in his chapel 
there, 
And drink his beauty to our soul's 
content 
— My angel with me too : and since 
I car* 



For dear Guercino's fame (to which in 

power 
And glory comes this picture for a, 
dower. 
Fraught with a pathos so magnifi- 
cent) 

vin. 

And since he did not work thus ear- 
nestly 
At all times, and has else endured 
some wrong — 
I took one thought his picture struck 
from me. 
And spread it out, translating it to 
song. 
My love is here. Where are you, dear 

old friend ? 
How rolls the Wairoa at your world's 
far end ? 
This is Ancona, yonder is the sea. 



EVELYN HOPE. 



Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead ! 

Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
That is her book-shelf, this her bed ; 
She plucked that piece of geranium- 
flower, 
Beginning to die too, in the glass ; 
Little has vet been changed, I 
think : 
The shutters are shut, no light may 
pass 
Save two long rays through the 
hinge's chink. 



Sixteen years old when she died ! 

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my 
name ; 
It was not her time to love ; beside, 

Her life had many a hope and aim, 
Duties enough and little cares. 

And now was quiet, now astir, 
Till God's hand beckoned unawares, — 

And the sweet white brow is all of 
her. 

iir. 
Is it too late then. Evelyn Hope ? 

AVhat, your soul was jiure and true. 
The good stars met in your horoscope, 

Made you of spirit, fire, and dew — 



APPARENT FAILURE. 



95 



A-nd just because I was thrice as old, 
Aud our paths in the world diverged 
so wide, 
Each was naught to each, must I be 
told ? 
"We were fellow mortals, naught 
beside ? 

IV. 

No, indeed ! for God above 

Is great to grant, as mighty to make. 
And creates the love to reward the 
love : 
I claim you still, for my own love's 
sake ! 
Delayed it may be for more lives yet, 
Through worlds I shall traverse, 
not a few : 
Much is to learn, much to forget 
Ere the time be come for taking 
you. 

V. 

But the time will come, — at last it 
will. 
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant 
(I shall say) 
In the lower earth, in the years long 
still. 
That body and soul so pure and gay ? 
Why your hair was amber, I shall 
divine, 
And your mouth of your own gera- 
nium's red — 
Aud what you would do with me, in 
fine. 
In the new life come in the old one's 
stead. 

VI. 

I have lived (I shall say) so much 
since then. 
Given up myself so many times. 
Gained me the gains of various men, 
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the 
climes ; 
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full 
scope, 
Either I missed or itself missed me: 
Andlwantand find you, Evelyn Hope! 
What is the issue ? let us see ! 



I loved you, Evelyn, all the while ! 
My heart seemed full as it could 
hold ; 
There was place and to spare for the 
frank young smile, 
And the fed young mouth, and the 
hair's young gold. 



So hush, — I will gire you this leaf to 
keep : 
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold 
hand ! 
There, that is our secret : go to slee]) \ 
You will wake, andr emember, aud 
understand. 



MEMORABILIA. 



Ah ! did you once see Shelley plain. 

And did he stop and speak to you. 
And did you speak to him again ? 

How strange it seems, and new ! 



But you were living before that, 
And also you are living after ; 

And the memory I started at — 
My starting moves your laughter T 

m. 

I crossed a moor, with a name ol its 

own 

And a certain use in the world, no 

doubt. 

Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 

'Mid the blank miles round about : 



For there I picked up on the heather 
And there I put inside my breast 

A moulted feather, an eagle-feather ! 
Well, I forget the rest. 



APPARENT FAILURE. 

"We shall soon lose a celebrated building." 
Paris Newspaper, 



No, for I'll save it ! Seven years 
since, 
I passed through Paris, stopped a 
day 
To see the baptism of your Prince ; 
Saw, made my bow, and went my 
way: 



96 



PROSPICE. 



Walking tlie heat and headache off, 
I took the Seine-side, you surmise, 
Thought of the Congress, Gortscha- 
koiT, 
Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies, 
So sauntered till — what met my 
eyes ? 



Only the Doric little Morgue ! 
The dead-house where you show 
your drowned : 
Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the 
Sorgue, 
Your Morgue has made the Seine 
renowned. 
One pays one's debt in such a case ; 
1 23lucked up heart and entered, — 
stalked, 
Keeping a tolerable face 
Compared with some whose cheeks 
were chalked : 
Let them ! No Briton's to be 
balked ! 



First came the silent gazers ; next, 
A screen of glass, we're thankful 
for ; 
Last, the sight's self, the sermon's 
text, 
The three men who did most abhor 
Their life in Paris yesterdaj^ 
So killed tiiemselves : and now, 
enthroned 
Each on his copper couch, they lay 

Fronting me, waiting to be owned. 
I thought, and think, their sin's 
atoned. 



Poor men, God made, and all for 
that ! 
The reverence struck me ; o'er each 
head 
Religiously was hung its hat. 
Each coat dripped by the owner's 
bed. 
Sacred from touch : each had his 
berth, 
His bounds, his proper place of 
rest, 
Who last night tenanted on earth 
Some arch, where twelve such slept 
abreast, — 
Unless the plain asphalte seemed 
best. 



How did it happen, my poor boy ? 

You wanted to Ije Buonaparte 
And have the Tuileries for toy. 

And could not, so it broke yout 
heart ? 
You, old one by his .side, I judge, 

"Were, red as blood, a socialist, 
A leveller ! Does the Empire grudge 

You've gained what no Republic 
missed ? 
Be quiet, and unclinch your fist I 



And this — why, he was red in vain, 

Or black, — poor fellow that is blue ! 
What fancy was it, turned your brain ? 

Oh, women were the prize for you ! 
Money gets women, cards and dice 

Get money, and ill-luck gets just 
The copper couch and one clear nice 

Cool squirt of water o'er your bust, 
The right thing to extinguish lust ! 



VII. 

It's wiser being good than bad ; 

It's safer being meek tlian fierce : 
It's fitter being sane than mad. 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
The thickest cloud earth ever 
stretched ; 
That, after Last, returns the First, 
Though a wide compass round be 
fetched ; 
That what began best, can't end 
worst, 
Nor what God blessed once, prove 
accurst. 



PROSPICE. 



Fear death? — to feel the fog in m^ 
throat. 
The mist in my face. 
When the snows begin, and the blasts 
denote 
I am Hearing the place, 
The power of the night, the press of 
the storm, 
The post of the foe ; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a 
visible form, 
Yet the strong man must go : 



''CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME.' 



For the journey is done and the sum- 
mit attained, 
And the barriers fall, 
Though a battle's to fight ere the 
guerdon be gained. 
The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight 
more. 
The best and the last ! 
I would hate that death bandaged 
my eyes, and forbore. 
And bade me creep past. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare 
like my peers 
The heroes of old. 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad 
life's arrears 
Of pain, darkness, and cold. 
For sudden the worst turns the best 
to the brave, 
The black minute's at end. 
And the elements' rage, the fiend- 
voices that rave. 
Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
Shall change, shall become first a 
peace out of pain, 
Then a light, then thy breast, 
O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp 
thee again. 
And with God be the rest ! 



«CHILDE ROLAND TO THE 
DARK TOWER CAME," 

(See Edgar's song in " Lear.") 



My first thought was, he lied in every 
word. 
That hoary cripple, with malicious 

eye 
Askance to watch the working of 
his lie 
On mine, and mouth scarce able to 

afford 
Suppression of the glee, that pursed 
and scored 
Its edge, at one more victim gained 
thereby. 

11. 
W^hat else should he be set for, with 
his staff ? 
What, save to waylay with his lies, 
insnare 



All travellers who might find him 
l^osted there, 
And ask the road ? I guessed what 

skull-like laugh 
Would break, what crutch gin write 
my epitaph 
For pastime in the dusty thorough- 
fare. 



If at his counsel I should turn aside 
Into that ominous tract which, all 

agree. 
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquis 
escingly 
I did turn as he pointed: neither pride 
Nor hope rekindling at the end de- 
scried. 
So much as gladness that some end 
might be. 



For, what with my whole world-wide 
wandering. 
What with my search drawn out 

through years, my hope 
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope 
With that obstreperous joy success 

would bring, — 
I hardly tried now to rebuke the 
spring 
My heart made, finding failure iu 
its scope. 



As when a sick man very near to 
death 
Seems dead indeed, and feels begin 

and end 
The tears, and takes the farewell of 
each friend. 
And hears one bid the other go, draw 

breath, 
Freelier outside ("since all is o'er," 
he saith, 
" And the blow fallen no grieving 
can amend") ; 



While some discuss if near the other 
graves 
Be room enough for this, and when 

a day 
Suits best for carrying the corpse 
away, 
With care about the banners, scarves, 
and staves : 



98 



" CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TO WER CAME. 



And still the man hears all, and only 
craves 
He may not shame such tender love 
and stay. 

vn. 

Thus, I had so long suffered in this 
quest, 
Heard failure proi>hesied so oft, 

been writ 
So many times among " The Band " 
— to wit, 
The knights who to the Dark Tower's 

search addressed 
Their steps — that just to fail as they, 
seemed best, 
And all the doubt was now — should 
I be fit ? 



So, quiet as despair, I turned from 
him, 
That hateful cripple, out of his high- 
way 
Into the path he pointed. All the 
day 
Had been a dreary one at best, and 

dim 
Was settling to its close, yet shot one 
grim 
Red leer to see the plain catch its 
estray. 



For mark ! no sooner was I fairly 
found 
Pledged to the plain, after a pace 

or two, 
Than, pausing to throw backward 
a last view 
O'er the safe road, 'twas gone ; gray 

plain all round : 
Nothing but plain to the horizon's 
bound. 
I might go on : naught else remained 
to do. 



So, on I went. I think I never saw 
Such starved ignoble nature ; noth- 
ing throve : 
For flowers — as well expect a ce- 
dar grove ! 
But cockle, spurge, according to their 

law 
Might propagate their kind, with none 
to awe. 
You'd think ; a burr had been a 
treasure trove. 



No ! penury, inertness, and grimace, 
In some strange sort, were the 

land's portion. " See 
Or shut your eyes," said Naturt; 
peevishly, 
" It nothing skills : I cannot help n\\ 

case : 
'Tis the Last Judgment's fire mus 
cure this place, 
Calcine its clods and set my i^risou 
ers free." 



If there pushed any ragged thistle, 
stalk 
Above its mates, the head was 

chopped ; the bents 
"Were jealous else. What inado 
those holes and rents 
In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, 

bruised as to balk 
All hope of greenness ? 'tis a brutt 
must walk 
Pashing their life out, with a brute's 
intents. 



As for the grass, it grew as scant as> 
hair 
In leprosy : thin dry blades pricked 

the mud 
Which underneath looked kneaded 
up with blood. 
One stiff blind horse, his every bono 

a-stare, 
Stood stupefied, however he came 
there : 
Thrust out past service from the 
Devil's stud ! 



Alive ? he might be dead for aught I 
know, 
With that red gaunt and colloped 

neck a-strain. 
And shut eyes underneath the rustj 
mane ; 
Seldom went sucb grotesqueness 

with such woe ; 
I never saw a brute I h«»*ed so ; 
He must be wicked lo aeserve such 
pain. 

XV. 

I shut my eyes and turned them on 
my hejw* 
As a man caJl« ^or wine >-«'tore he 
fights, 



" CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME." 



99 



I asked one draught of earlier, hap- 
pier sights, 
Ere fitly I could liope to play my part. 
Think ' tirst, fight afterwards — the 
soldier's art : 
One taste of the old time sets all to 
rights. 

XVI. 

iSTot it ! I fancied Cuthbert's redden- 
ing face 
Beneath its garniture of curly gold. 
Dear fellow, till I almost felt him 
fold 
An arm in mine to fix me to the place, 
That way he used. Alas, one night's 
disgrace ! 
Out went my heart's new fire and 
left it cold. 



''liles then.tlie soul of honor — there 
he stands 
Frank as ten years ago when 

knighted first. 
What honest man should dare (he 
said) he durst. 
Good — but the scene shifts — faugh ! 

what hangman hands 
Pin to his breast a parchment ? His 
own bands 
Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon 
and curst ! 

XVIII. 

Patter this present than a past like 
that ; 
Back therefore to my darkening 

path again ! 
No sound, no sight as far as eye 
could strain. 
Will the night send a howlet or a bat ? 
I asked : when something on the dis- 
mal fiat 
Came to i;ri.°.st my thoughts and 
change their train. 



4 sudden little river crossed my path 
As unexpected as a serpent comes. 
No sluggish tide o^ngenial to the 
glooms ; 
This, as it frothed by might have 

been a bath 
For the fiend's glowing hf^jf — to see 
the wrath 
Of its black eddy bespat** ^'it?- 
flakes and spumes. 



So petty yet so spiteful ! All along, 
Low scrul)by alders kneeled down 

over it ; 
Drenched willows flung them head. 
long in a fit 
Of mute despair, a suicidal throng : 
The river which had doue them all 
the wrong, 
Whate'er that was, rolled by, de- 
terred no whit. 



Which, while I forded, — good saints, 
how I feared 
To set my foot upon a dead man's 

cheek, 
Each step, or feel the spear I thrust 
to seek 
For hollows, tangled in his hair or 

beard ! 
— It may have been a water-rat I 
speared, 
But, ugh I it sounded like a baby's 
shriek. 

XXII. 

Glad was I when I reached the other 
bank. 
Now for a better country. Vain 

presage ! 
Who were the strugglers, what war 
did they wage 
Whose savage trample thus could 

pad the dank 
Soil to a plash ? Toads in a poisoned 
tank, 
Or wild cats in a i-ed-hct iron cage — 

XXIII. 

The fight must so have seemed in that 
fell cirque. 
What penned them there, with all 

the plain to choo.se ? 
No footprint leading to that horrid 
mews, 
None out of it. Mad brewage set to 

work 
Their brains, no doubt, like galley, 
slaves the Turk 
Pits for his pastime, Christians 
against Jews. 

XXIV. 

And more than that — a furlong on-" 
why, there ! 
What bad use w^ tl.-'.t engine Uvc. 
tlj»>, w^He^'l, 



100 



CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME 



Or brake, not wheel — that harrow 
fit to reel 
Men's bodies out like silk? with all 

ihe air 
Of Tophet's tool, on earth left una- 
ware, 
Or brought to sharpen its rusty 
teeth of steel. 



XXV. 

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, 
once a wood, 
Next a marsh, it would seem, and 

now mere earth 
Desperate and done with ; (so a fool 
finds mirth. 
Makes a thing and then mars it, till 

his mood 
Changes and off he goes ! ) within a 
rood — 
Bog, clay, and rubble, sand and 
stark black dearth. 



XXVI. 

Now blotches rankling, colored gay 
and grim. 
Now patches where some leanness 

of the soil's 
Broke into moss or substances like 
boils ; 
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft 

in him 
Like a distorted mouth that splits its 
rim 
Gaping at death, and dies while it 
recoils. 

XXVII. 

A.nd just as far as ever from the 
end : 
Naught in the distance but the even- 
ing, naught 
To point my footstep farther ! At 
the thought, 
A. great black bird, Apollyon's bosom 

friend. 
Bailed past, nor beat his wide wing 
dragon-penned 
That brushed my cap — perchance 
the guide I sought. 

xxvni. 
for, looking up, aware I somehow 
grew, 
'Spite of the dusk, the plain had 
given place 



All round to mountains — witl . such 
name to grace 
Mere ugly heights and heaps now 

stolen in view. 
How thus they had surprised me, — 
solve it, you ! 
How to get from them was nu 
clearer case. 

XXIX. 

Yet half I seemed to recognize some 
trick 
Of mischief happened to me, God 

knows when — 
In a bad dream perhaps. Here 
ended, then, 
Progress this way. When, in the 

very nick 
Of giving \x\), one time more, came a 
click 
As when a trail shuts — you're in- 
side the den 

XXX. 

Burningly it came on me all at once, 
This was the place ! those two hills 

on the right. 
Crouched like two bulls locked 
horn in horn in light ; 
While to the left, a tall scalped moun- 
tain . . . Dunce, 
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, 
After a life spent training for the 
sight ! 

XXXI. 

What in the midst lay but the Tower 
itself? 
The round squat turret, blind as 

tha fool's heart. 
Built of brown stone, without a 
counterpart 
In the whole world. The tempest's 

mocking elf 
Points to the shipraan thus the unseen 
shelf 
He strikes on, only when the tim. 
bers start. 

XXXII. 

Not see ? because of night perhaps ?^ 
why, day 
Came back again for that ! before it 

left, 
The dying sunset kindled through 
a cleft : 
Tlie hills, like giants at a hunting, 
lay, 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL. 



101 



Chin upon hand, to see the game at 
bay, — 
" Now stab and end the creature — 
to the heft!" 

xxxiir. 

Not liear? when noise was every- 
where ! it tolled 
Increasing like a bell. Names in 

my ears 
Of all the lost adventurers my 
peers, — 
How such a one was strong, and such 

was bold, 
And such was fortunate, yet each of 
old 
Lost, lost ! one moment knelled the 
woe of years. 

XXXIV. 

There they stood, ranged along the 
hill-sides, met 
To view the last of me, a living 

frame 
For one more picture ! in a sheet of 
tlame 
I saw them and I knew them all. 

And yet 
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I 
set. 
And blew " Childe Roland to the 
Bark Tower came." 



A GRAMMARIAN'S 
FUNERAL. 

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL 
OF LEARNING IN EUROPE. 

Let us begin and carry up this corpse, 

Singing together. 
Leave we the common crofts, the 
vulgar tliorpes, 
Each in its tether 
Sleeping safe in the bosom of the 
plain, 
Cared-for till cock-crow : 
Look out if yonder be not day again 

Rimming the rock-row ! 
That's the appropriate country; there, 
man's thought, 
Rarer, intenser, 
Se>r-gathered for an outbreak, as it 
ought. 
Chafes iu the censer. 



Leave we the unlettered plain its herd 
and crop ; 
Seek we sepulture 
On a tall mountain, citied to the top, 

Crowded with culture ! 
All the peaks soar, but one the rest 
excels : 
Clouds overcome it ; 
No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's 

Circling its summit. 
Thither our path lies ; wind we up the 
heights ! 
Wait ye the warning? 
Our low life was the level's and the 
night's : 
He's for the morning. 
Step to a tune, square chests, erect 
each head, 

'Ware the beholders ! 
This is our master, famous, calm, and 
dead. 
Borne on our shoulders. 

Sleep, crop and herd ! sleep, darkling 
thorpe and croft 

Safe from the weather ! 
He, whom we convoy to his grave 
aloft. 
Singing together. 
He was a man born with thy face and 
throat. 
Lyric Apollo ! 
Long he lived nameless : how should 
spring take note 
Winter would follow? 
Till lo, the little touch, and youth 
was gone ! 
Cramped and diminished. 
Moaned he, " New measures, othei 
feet anon ! 
" My dance is finished ? " 
No, that's tiie world's way; (keep the 
mountain side. 
Make for the city !) 
He knew the signal, and stejiped on 
with pride 
Over men's pity ; 
Left play for work, and grappled with 
the world 
Bent on escaping : 
" What's in the scroll," quoth he, 
" thou keepest furled ? 
Show me their shaping. 
Theirs who most studied man, the 
bard and sage, — 
Give ! " — So, he gowned him, 
Straight got by heart that book to its 
last page : 
Learned, we found him. 



102 



A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL. 



Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes 
like lead, 
Accents uncertain : 
"Time to taste life," another would 
have said, 
" Up with the curtain ! " 
This man said rather, "Actual life 
comes next ? 

Patience a moment ! 
Grant 1 have mastered learning's 
crabbed text, 
Still there's the comment. 
Let me know all ! Prate not of most 
or least, 
Painful or easy ! 
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up 
the feast. 
Ay, nor feel queasy." 
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, 

When he had learned it. 
When he had gathered all books had 
to give ! 
Sooner, he spurned it. 
Image the whole, then execute the 
parts — 
Fancy the fabric 
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike 
fire from quartz, 
Ere mortar dab brick ! 

(Here's the town-gate reached ; 
there's the market-place 
Gaping before us.) 
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace 

(Hearten our chorus !) 
That before living he'd learn how to 
live — 
No end to learning : 
Earn the means first — God surely 
will contrive 
Use for our earning. 
Others mistrust and say, " But time 
escapes ! 
Live now or never ! " 
He said, " What's time ? Leave Now 
for dogs and apes ! 
Man has Forever. ' 
Back to his book then : deeper 
drooped his head : 
Cdlriihis racked him : 
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of 
lead : 

Tiissis attacked him. 
Now, master, take a little rest 1 " — 
not he ! 
(Caution redoubled ! 
Step two alneast, the way winds 
narrowly !) 
Not a whit troubled, 



Back to his studies, fresher than at 
first. 
Fierce as a dragon 
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred 
thirst) 
Sucked at the fiagon. 
Oh, if we draw a circle jiremature, 

Heedless of far gain. 
Greedy for quick returns of profit 
sure 

Bad is our bargain ! 
Was it not great? did not he throVv 
on God 
(He loves the burthen) — 
God's task to make the heavenly pe^ 
riod 
Perfect the earthen ? 
Did not he magnify the mind, show 
clear 
Just what it all meant ? 
He would not discount life, as fools 
do here. 
Paid by instalment. 
He ventured neck or nothing — heav- 
en's success 
Found, or earth's failure : 
" Wilt thou trust death or not ? " He 
answered, " Yes ! 
Hence with life's pale lure ! " 
That low man seeks a little thing to 
do. 
Sees it and does it : 
This high man, with a great thing to 
pursue. 
Dies ere he knows it. 
That low man goes on adding one to 
one. 
His hundred's soon hit : 
This high man, aiming at a mil- 
lion. 
Misses an unit. 
That, has the world here — should he 
need the next. 
Let the world mind him ! 
This, throws himself on God, and un 
perplexed 
Seeking shall find him. 
So, with the throttling hands of deatl' 
at strife, 
Ground he at grammar ; 
Still, through the rattle, parts o? 
speech were rife : 
While he could stammer 
He settled Hoti's business — let it 
be! — 
Properly based Oxn — 
Gave lis the doctrine of the enclitic 
De, 
Dead from the waist down. 



CLEON. 



103 



Well, here's the platform, here's the 
proper place : 
Hail to your purlieus, 
All ye highliiers of tlie feathered race, 

Swallows and curlews ! 
Here's the top-peak ; the multitude 
below 
Live, for they can, there : 
This man decided not to Live but 
Kjiow — 

Bury this man there ? 
Here — here's liis place, where mete- 
ors shoot, clouds form, 
Lightnings are loosened, 
Stars come and go ! Let joy break 
with the storm. 
Peace let the dew send ! 
Lofty designs must close in like ef- 
fects : 
Loftily lying. 
Leave him — still loftier than the 
world suspects. 
Living and dying. 



CLEON. 

"As certahi also of your own poets have 
said" — 

Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled 

isles, 
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea, 
And laugh their pride vi^iien the light 

wave lisps " Greece "), — 
To Protus in his Tyranny : much 

health ! 

They give thy letter to me, even 

now : 
I read and seem as if I heard thee 

speak. 
The master of thy galley still unlades 
Gift after gift ; they block my court 

at last 
And pile themselves along its portico 
Royal with sunset, like a thought of 

thee ; 
And one white she-slave, from the 

group dispersed 
Of black and white slaves (like the 

checker-work 
Pavement, at once my nation's \vork 

and gift. 
Now covered with this settle-down of 

doves) 



One lyric woman, in her crocus vest 
Woven of sea-wools, with her two 

white hands 
Commends to me the strainer and the 

cup 
Thy lip hath bettered ere it blesses 

mine. 

Well counselled, king, in thy mu 

nificence ! 
For so shall men remark, in such an 

act 
Of love for him whose song gives lifo 

its joy. 
Thy recognition of the use of life : 
Nor call thy spirit barely adequate 
To help on life in straight ways, broad 

enough 
For vulgar souls, by ruling and the 

rest. 
Thou, in the daily building of thy 

tower, — 
Whether in fierce and sudden spasms 

of toil. 
Or through dim lulls of unapparent 

growth, 
Or when the general work, 'mid good 

acclaim. 
Climbed with the eye to cheer the 

ar(^hitect, — 
Didst ne'er engage in work for mere 

work's sake : 
Hadst ever in thy heart the luring 

hope 
Of some eventual rest a-top of it. 
Whence, all the tumult of the build- 
ing liushed. 
Thou first of men mightst look out to 

the East : 
The vulgar saw thy tower, thou saw- 

est the sun. 
For this, I promise on thy festival 
To pour libation, looking o'er the sea, 
Making this slave narrate thy for- 
tunes, speak 
Thy great words, and describe thy 

royal face — 
Wishing thee wholly where Zeus lives 

the most. 
Within the eventual element of calm. 

Thy letter's first requirement meets' 

me here. 
It is as thou hast heard : in one short 

life 
T, t'leon, have effected all those things 
Thou wonderingly dost enumerate. 
That epos on thy hundred plates of 

gold 



104 



CLEON. 



Is mine, and also mine the little chant 
So sure to rise from every fishing- 
bark 
When, lights at prow, the seamen 

haul their net. 
The image of the sun-god on the 

phare. 
Men turn from the sun's self to see, is 

mine ; 
The PcEcile, o'er-storied its whole 

length. 
As thou didst hear, with painting, is 

mine too. 
I know the true proportions of a man 
And woman also, not observed before ; 
And I have written three books on 

the soul, 
Proving absurd all written hitherto. 
And putting us to ignorance again. 
For miisic, — why, I have combined 

the moods. 
Inventing one. In brief, all arts are 

mine ; 
Thus much the people know and rec- 
ognize. 
Throughout our seventeen islands. 

Marvel not ! 
\ye of these latter days, with greater 

mind 
Than our forerunners, since more 

composite. 
Look not so great, beside their simple 

way. 
To a judge who only sees one way at 

once. 
One mind-point and no other at a 

time, — 
Compares the small part of a man of 

us 
With some whole man of the heroic 

age. 
Great in his way — not ours, nor 

meant for ours. 
And ours is greater, had we skill to 

know : 
For, what we call this life of men on 

earth, 
This sequence of the soul's achieve- 
ments here. 
Being, as I find much reason to con- 
ceive, 
Intended to be viewed eventually 
As a great whole, not analyzed to 

parts, 
But each part having reference to 

all,— 
How shall a certain part, pronounced 

complete, 
Endure effacement by another i^art ? 



Was the thing done? — then, what's 
to do again ? 

See, in the checkered pavement oppo- 
site, 

Sujipose the artist made a perfect 
rhomb. 

And next a lozenge, then a trape- 
zoid — 

He did not overlay them, superim- 
pose 

The new upon the old and blot it out, 

But laid them on a level in his work, 

Making at last a ^licture ; there it 
lies. 

So first the perfect separate forms 
were made. 

The portions of mankind ; and after, 
so. 

Occurred the combination of the 
sauK!. 

For where had been a jirogress, other- 
wise ? 

Mankind, made up of all the single 
men, — 

In such a synthe; is the labor ends. 

Now mark me ! those divine men of 
old time 

Have reached, thou sayest well, each 
at one point 

The outside verge that rounds our 
faculty ; 

And where they reached, who can do 
more than reach ? 

It takes but little water just to touch 

At some one point the inside of a 
sphere. 

And, as we turn the sphere, touch all 
the rest 

In due succession : but the finer air 

Which not so palpably nor obviously, 

Though no less universally, can touch 

The wliole circumference of that 
emptied sphere, 

Fills it more fully than the water 
did ; 

Holds thrice the weight of water in 
itself 

Resolved into a subtler element. 

And yet the vulgar call the sphere 
first full 

Up to the visible height — and after, 
void ; 

Not knowing air's more hidden prop- 
erties. 

And thus our soul, misknown, cries 
out to Zeus 

To vindicate his purpose in our life : 

Why stay we on the earth unless to 
grow? 



CLEON. 



ior» 



Long since, I imaged, wrote the fic- 
tion ont, 
Tliat he or other god descended here 
And, once for all, showed simultane- 

onsly 
What, in its nature, never can be 

shown 
Piecemeal or in succession ; showed, 

I say, 
The worth both absolute and relative 
Of all liis children from the birth of 

time. 
His instruments for all appointed 

■work. 
I now go on to image, -might we 

hear 
The judgment which should give the 

due to each. 
Show where the labor lay and wliere 

the ease. 
And prove Zeus' self, the latent 

everywhere ! 
This is a dream : — but no dream, let 

us hope, 
That years and days, the summers 

and the springs, 
Follow each other with iinwaning 

powers. 
The grapes which dye thy wine, are 

richer far 
Through culture, than the wild wealth 

of the rock ; 
The suave plum than the savage- 
tasted drupe ; 
The pastured honey-bee drops choicer 

sweet ; 
The flowers turn double, and the 

leaves turn flowers ; 
That young and tender crescent 

moon, thy slave, 
Sleeping upon her robe as if on 

clouds. 
Refines upon the women of my youth. 
What, and the soul alone deteriorates ? 
I have not chanted verse like Homer, 

no — 
Kor swept string like Terimnder, no — 

nor carved 
.A.nd painted men like Phidias and 

his friend : 
I am not great as they are, point by 

point. 
But I have entered into sj'mpathy 
With these four, running these into 

one soul, 
Who, separate, ignored each others' 

arts. 
Say, is it nothing that I know them 

all? 



The wild-flower was the larger ; l 

have dashed 
Rose-blood upon its petals, pricked 

its cup's 
Honey with wine, and driven its seed 

to fruit. 
And show a better flower if not sc 

large . 
I stand myself. Refer this to the 

gods 
Whose gift alone it is ! which,, shall 1 

dare 
(All pride apart) upon the absurd 

pretext 
That such a gift by chance lay in my 

hand. 
Discourse of lightly or depreciate ? 
It might have fallen to another's 

iiand : what then ? 
I pass too surely : let at least truth 

stay ! 

And next, of what thou followest 

on to ask. 
This being with me, as I declare, O 

king! 
My works in all these varicolored 

kinds, 
So done by me, accepted so by men — 
Thou askest, if (my soul thus in men's 

hearts) 
I must not be accounted to attain 
The verv crown and proper end of 

life ? 
Inquiring thence how, now life closeth 

up, 
I face death with success in my right 

hand ; 
Whether I fear death less than dost 

thyself 
The fortunate of men? "For" 

(writest thou), 
" Thou leavest much behind, while I 

leave naught. 
Thy life stays in the iioems men shall 

sing. 
The pictures men shall study ; while 

my life, 
Complete and whole now in its power 

and joy. 
Dies altogether with my brain and 

arm. 
Is lost indeed ; since, what survives 

myself ? 
The brazen statue to o'erlook niv 

grave. 
Set on the promontory which I named. 
And that— some supple :;ourtiei: o^ 

my heir 



106 



CLE ON. 



Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, 

perhaps 
To fix the rope to, which best drags it 

down. 
I go then : triumph thou, who dost 

not go ! " 

Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my 

whole mind. 
Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to 

muse 
Upon the scheme of earth and man in 

chief. 
That admiration grows as knowledge 

grows ? 
That imperfection means perfection 

hid, 
Reserved in part, to grace the after- 
time ? 
If, in the morning of i^hilosophy, 
Ere aught had been recorded, nay 

perceived, 
Thou, with the light now in thee, 

couldst have looked 
On all earth's tenantry, from worm 

to bird, 
Ere man, her last, appeared upon the 

stage — 
Thou wouldst have seen them perfect, 

and deduced 
The perfectness of others j'et unseen. 
Conceding which, — had Zeus then 

questioned thee 
" Shall I go on a step, improve on 

this, 
Do more for visible creatures than is 

done ? " 
Thou wouldst have answered, "Ay, 

by making each 
Grow conscious in himself — by that 

alone. 
All's perfect else : tlie shell sucks fast 

the rock. 
The fish strikes through the sea, the 

snake both swims 
And slides, forth range the beasts, 

the birds take flight. 
Till life's mechanics can no farther 

go — 
And all this joy in natural life, is 

put. 
Like tire from off thy finger into each. 
So exquisitely perfect is the same. 
But 'tis pure lire, and they mere 

matter are : 
It has them, not they it ; and so I 

choose 
For man, thy last premeditated work 
(Ti I might add a glory to the scheme) 



That a third thing should stand apart 
from both, 

A quality arise within his soul, 

Which, intro-active, made to super- 
vise 

And feel the force it has, may view it- 
self, 

And so be happy." Man might live 
at lirst 

The animal life : but is there nothing 
more ? 

In due time, let him critically learn 

How he lives ; and, the more he gets 
to know 

Of his own life's adaptt.bilities, 

The more joy-giving will his life be- 
come. 

Thus man, who hath this quality, is 
best. 

But thou, king, hadst more reasona- 
bly said : 
"Let progress end at once, — man 

make no step 
Beyond the natural man, the better 

beast, 
Using his senses, not the sense of 

sense ! " 
In man there's failure, only since he 

left 
The lower and inconscious forms of 

life. 
We called it an advance, the render- 
ing plain 
Man's spirit might grow conscious of 

man's life. 
And, by new lore so added to the 

old, 
Take each step higher over the brute's 

head. 
This grew the only life, the pleasure- 
house. 
Watch-tower and treasure-fortress of 

the soul, 
Which whole surrounding flats of 

natural life 
Seemed only fit to yield subsistence 

to ; 
A tower that crowns a country. But 

alas. 
The soul now climbs it just to perish 

there ! 
For thence we have discovered ('tis 

no dream — 
We know this, which we had not else 

perceived) 
That there's a world of capability 
For joy, spread round about us, meant 

for us. 



CLE ON. 



107 



Inviting ns ; and still the soul craves 

ail, 
And still the flesh replies, "Take no 

jot more 
Than ere thou clombst the tower to 

look abroad ! 
Nay, so much less as that fatigue has 

brought 
Deduction to it." We straggle, fain 

to enlarge 
Our bounded physical recipiency. 
Increase our power, supply fresh oil 

to life. 
Repair the waste of age and sickness : 

no. 
It skills not ! life's inadequate to joy, 
As the soul sees joy, temjating life to 

take. 
They praise a fountain in my garden 

here 
Wherein a Naiad sends the water-bow 
Thin from her tube : she smiles to see 

it rise. 
What if I told her, it is just a thread 
From that great river which the hills 

shut up. 
And mock her with my leave to take 

the same ? 
The artificer has given her one small 

tube 
Past power to widen or exchange — 

what boots 
To know she might spout oceans if 

she could ? 
She cannot lift beyond her first thin 

thread : 
And so a man can use but a man's 

joy 
While he sees God's. Is it for Zeus 

to boast, 
" See, man, how happy I live, and de- 
spair — 
That I may be stil I happier — for thy 

use ! " 
If this were so, ve could not thank 

our lord, 
As hearts beat on to doing : 'tis not 

so — 
Malice it is not. Is it carelessness ? 
Still, no. If care — where «s tiie sign ? 

I ask. 
And get no answer, and ac;ree in 

sum, 
O king ! with thy profound discour- 
agement. 
Who seest the wider but to sigh the 

more. 
Most progress is most failure : thou 

say est well. 



The last point now. Thou dost ex- 
cept a case — 

Holding joy not impossible to one 

With artist-gifts — to such a man as 1 

Who leave behind me living works 
indeed ; 

For, such a poem, such a painting 
lives. 

What? dost thou verily trip upon a 
word, 

Confound the accurate view of what 
joy is 

(Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes 
than thine) 

With feeling joy ? confound the know- 
ing how 

And showing how to live (my faculty) 

With actually living ? — Otherwise 

Where is the artist's vantage o'er the 
king? 

Because in my great epos I display 

How divers men young, strong, fair, 
wise, can act — 

Is this as though I acted ? if 1 
paint. 

Carve the young Phoebus, am I there- 
fore young ? 

Methinks I'm older that I bowed mv 
self 

The many years of pain that taught 
me art ! 

Indeed, to know is something, and to 
prove 

How all this beauty might be en- 
joyed, is more : 

But, knowing naught, to enjoy is 
something too. 

Yon rower, with the moulded muscles 
there. 

Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I. 

I can write love-odes : thy fair slave's 
an ode. 

I get to sing of love, when grown too 
gray 

For being beloved : she turns to that 
young man. 

The muscles all a-ripple on his back. 

I know the joy of kingship : well, 
thou art king ! 

"But," sayest thou — (and I marvel, 
I repeat. 

To find thee tripping on a mere word) 
" what 

Thou writest, paintest, stays ; that 
does not dio- 

Sappho survives, because we sing he- 
songs, 

And iEscliylus, because we read Ills 
plays I " 



108 



/NSTANS TYRANNV8. 



Why, if tlu'y live still, lot them coino 

and tako 
Thy sliivo in my (lpapit(>, drink from 

thy cup, 
Spoiik in my \\hwO:. Thou dicst wliilc 

I surviv(^? 
Say rather that mv fate is deadlier 

still, 
la this, that evtu-y day mv sense of 

joy 
(Irows more aente, mv soul (intensi- 
fied 
By power and insij>ht) more enlarjied, 

more keen; 
While every day my hair falls more 

and more. 
My hand shaki'S.and the heavy years 

inereasc^ — 
The liorror (piiekeninjj; still from year 

to year. 
The eonsnmmation eominij jiast es- 

raj)e, 
Wlien 1 shall know most, and yet 

leastcnjoy — 
When all my works wherein I prove 

my worth, 
liein^ present still to nuK'k me in 

men's months. 
Alive still, in tlio phrase of sneh as 

thou, 
I, I the feeling, thiidcinji;, acting 

man. 
The man who loved his life so over- 

nuieh. 
Shall sleep in mv urn. It is so hor- 
rible, 
I dare at times imagine to my need 
Some future state revealed to us by 

Zeus, 
Unlimited in capability 
For joy, as this is in desire for joy, 
— To seek which, the joy-hunger 

fon-es us : 
That, stung by straitness of our life, 

made strait 
hi ]>nrpt>»o to mak(^ prizixl the life at 

large — 
ITreed by the throbbing impulse we 

call death, 
We burst there, as the worm into the 

<l.v. 
Who, while a worm still, wants his 

wings. IJut no ! 
Zoushas liotyet revealed it ; and alas, 
lie nmst have done so, were it possi- 
ble I 

Live long and happy, and in that 
thought die. 



Clad for what was ! Farewell. And 

for th(> rest, 
I cannot t(>ll thy messengiM- aright 
Where to deliver what lie bears ol 

thine 
To one called Paulus ; we have heard 

his fame 
Indeed, if Cliristus be not oiu^ with 

him — 
I know not, nor am troubled much to 

know. 
Thou canst not think a mere barbarian 

Jew 
As I'aiilns i)roves to be, one circum- 
cised, 
Ifat h access to a secret shut from us ? 
Thou wrongest our philosophv, O 

king. 
In stooping to inquire of such on 

one. 
As if his answer could impose at all ! 
He writeth, doth he? well, and he 

m;iy write. 
Oil, tile .lew iindeth scholars ! certain 

slaves 
Who touched on this same isle, 

lircached him and Christ ; 
And (as I gathered from a by-stander) 
Their doctrint^ could be held by no 

sane man. 



IN8TANS TYRANNUS. 



Or the million or two, nmre or less, 
I rule and possess. 
One man, for some cause undefined. 
Was least to my mind. 



I struck him, he grovelled of course- 

For, wli.it was his forc(> ? 

I pinned him to earth with my weight 

And persistence tif hate ; 

And he lay, would not uioan, wonUi 

not curse. 
As his lot might be worse. 



" Were tlie object less mean would 

he stand 
At the swing of my hand 1 
For obscurity helps him, and blots 
The hole where he squats." 



AN EPISTLE. 



109 



So, I set my tivo wits on the stretch 

To inveifjh- the wretch. 

All in viiiii ! Gold anil jewels I 

threw, 
Still he conched there jKndue ; 
I tempted his blood and his desli. 
Hid in roses my mesh, 
Choit-est eates and the tiagon's best 

spilth : 
Still he kept to his filth. 



Had he kith now or kin, were access 

To his heart, did I ])ress : 

Jnst a son or a motiier to seize ! 

No sneh liooty as these. 

Were it simply a friend to jjursue 

'Mid my million or two, 

Who could pay m(>, in person or pelf. 

What he owes me himself ! 

No : I could not but smile through 

my chafe : 
For the fellow lay safe 
As his mates do, the midge and the 

nit, 
— Through minuteness, to wit. 

V. 

Then a humor more great took its 

place 
At the thought of his face : 
The droop, the low cares of the 

movitli. 
The trouble wncouth 
'Twixt the brows, all that air one is 

fain 
To put out of its pain. 
And, " no ! " I admonished myself, 
" Is one mocketl by an elf. 
Is one balHcd by toad or by rat ? 
The gravamen's in that ! 
How the lion, who crouches to suit 
His back to my foot. 
Would admire that I stand in debate ! 
But the small turns the great 
If it vexes yon, — that is the thing ! 
Toad or rat vex the king ? 
Though I waste half my realm to 

unearth 
Toad or rat, 'tis well w^orth ! " 



So, I soberly laid ray last plan 

To extinguish the man. 

Round his creep-hole, with never a 

break. 
Ran my fires for his sake ; 



Over-head, did my thunder combine 
\N'illi my under-ground mine : 
Till 1 looked from my labor content 
To enjoy the event 



When sudden . . . how think ye, the 

end ? 
Did I say " without friend " ? 
Say ratlicr, from marge to blue marge 
Tile wholly sUy grew his targe 
Witli the sun's self for visible boss, 
Wiiil(! an Arm ran across, 
Wliich tli(^ earth heaved beneath like 

a brt'ast, 
Wlu^re tlu^ wretch was safe prest ! 
Do yon ava'^ Just my vengeance 

complete. 
The man sprang to his feet. 
Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, 

and praye(l ! 
— So, / was ai'raitl ! 



AN EPISTLE 

CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDI- 
CAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, 
THE ARAB PHYSICIAN. 

Karshisii, the picker-up of learning's 

crumbs. 
The not-incurious in God's handi- 
work 
(This man's-flesh he hath admirably 

made. 
Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a 

paste. 
To coop np and keep down on earth 

a space 
That jniff of vapor from his mouth, 

man's soul) 
— To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, 
Breeder in me oi' what poor skill I 

boast, 
Like me inquisitive how pricks and 

cracks 
Befall the tiesli through too much 

stress and strain. 
Whereby the wily vai^or fain would 

sliji 
Back and rejoin its source before the 

term, — 
And aptest in contrivance (under 

God) 



no 



AN EPISTLE. 



To baffle it by tleftly stoppins such : — 

The vugraut Scholar to his Sage at 
home 

Semis greeting (health and knowl- 
iidge, fame with peace) 

Three samples of true snake-stone — 
rarer still, 

One of the other sort, the melon- 
shaped 

(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms 
than drugs), 

And writeth now the twenty-second 
time. 

My jonrneyings were brought to 

Jericho : 
Thus I resume. Who, studious in 

our art. 
Shall count a little labor unrepaid ? 
I have shed sweat enough, left flesh 

and bone 
On many a tlinly furlong of this land. 
Also, the country-side is all on tire 
With rumors of a marching hither- 
ward. 
Some say Vespasian cometh, some, 

his son. 
A black lynx snarled and pricked a 

tufted car ; 
Lust of mv blood inflamed his yellow 

balKs : . 
I cried and threw my staff, and he 

was gone. 
Twice have the robbers stripped and 

beaten me, 
And once a town declared me for a 

spy ; 
But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, 
Since this poi)r covert where I pass 

the night. 
This Bethany, lies scarce the distance 

thence 
A man with plague-sores at the third 

degree 
Runs till he drops down dead. Thou 

laushest here ! 
Sooth, it'elates me, thus reposed and 

safe, 
To void the stuffing of my travel- 
scrip. 
And share with thee whatever Jewry 

vields. 
A viscid choler is observable 
In tertians, I wivs nearly bold to 

say ; 
And falling-sickness hath a happier 

cure 
Than our school wots of : there's a 

spider here 



Weaves no web, watches on the ledge 
of tombs, 

Sprinkled with mottles on an ash- 
gray back ; 

Take fi\c and drop them . . . but 
who knows his mind, 

The Syrian runagate I trust this to ? 

His service paycth me a sublimate 

Blown up his iiose to help the ailing 
eye. 

Best wait : I reach Jerusalem at morn. 

There set in order my experiences, 

Gather what most deserves, and give 
thee all — 

Or I might add, Jud.Tea's gum-traga- 
canth 

Scales off in purer flakes, shines 
clearer-grained. 

Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the por- 
phyry, 

In fine exceeds our produce. Scali>- 
discase 

Confounds me, crossing so with lep- 
rosy : 

Thou hadst admired one sort I gained 
at Zoar — 

But zeal outruns discretion. Here I 
end. 

Yet stay ! my Syrian blinketh grate- 
fully, 
Protesteth his devotion is my price — 
Suppose I write what harms not, 

though he steal ? 
I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, 
What set me off a-writing first of 

all. 
An itch I had, a sting to write, a 

tang ! 
For, be it this town's barrenness,— 

or else 
The Man had something in the look 

of him, — 
His case has struck me far more than 

'tis worth. 
So. pardon if — (lest presently I lose, 
In tlie great press of no\clty at hand, 
The care and pains this somehow 

stole from mc) 
I bid thee take the thing while fresh 

in mind. 
Almost in sight — for, wilt thou have 

the truth? 
The very man is gone from me but 

now. 
Whose ailment is the subject of dis- 
course. 
Thus then, and let thy better wit 

help all ! 



AN EPISTLE. 



Ill 



'Tis Init a case of mania : sub- 

induotHl 
By epilepsy, at the turning-point 
01 tranco nrolunj^od luululy some 

tlirco uaj's 
WluMi, by the exhibition of some drug 
Or spell, exoreization, stroke of art 
Unknown to me and which 'twere 

well to know, 
The evil thing, out-breaking, all at 

once, 
Left the man whole and sound of body 

indeed, — 
But, Hinjiing (so to speak) life's gates 

too witle. 
Making a clear house of it too sud- 
denly. 
The first conceit that entered might 

inscribe 
Whatever it was minded on the wall 
So plainly at that vantage, as it were 
(First eoiiie, tirst served), that nothing 

subse(|uent 
Attaiiieth to erase those fancy-scrawk 
The just-returned and new-established 

soul 
Ilath gotten now so thoroughly by 

heart 
That henceforth she will read or these 

or none. 
And tirst— the man's own firm con- 
viction rests 
That he was dead (in fact they buried 

him) 

— That he was dead and then restored 

to life 
By a Nazarene physician of his tribe : 

— 'Saycth, the same bade " Rise," and 

he did rise. 
"Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt 

cry. 
Not so this tigment ! — not, that such 

a fume, 
Instead of giving waj' to time and 

health. 
Should eat itself into the life of life. 
As salfron tingeth tlesh, blood, bones, 

and all ! 
For see, how he takes up the after- 
life. 
The man — it is one Lazarus a Jew, 
Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of 

iigc. 
The body's habit wholly laudable. 
As much, indeed, beyond the common 

health 
As he were made and put aside to 

show. 
Think, could we penetrate by any drug 



And bathe the wearied soul and wor- 
ried tiesh. 
And bring it clear and fair, by three 

days' sUh>p ! 
Whence has the man the balm that 

brightens all ? 
This grown man eyes the world now 

like a child. 
Some elders of his tribe, I should pre- 
mise, 
Led in their friend, obedient as «, 

sheep. 
To bear my inquisition. While they 

spoke, 
Now sharply, now with sorrow, — told 

the case, — 
He listened not except I spoke to 

him, 
But folded bis two hands and let 

them talk. 
Watching the (lies that buzzed : and 

y(^t' no fool. 
And that's a sample how his years 

nuist go. 
Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, 
Should find a treasure, — can he use 

the same 
With straitened habitude and tastes 

starved small, 
And take at once to his impoverished 

brain 
The sudden element that changes 

things, 
That sets the undreamed-of rapture 

at his hand. 
And puts the cheap old joy in the 

scorned dust ? 
Is lie not such an one as moves to 

mirth — 
Warily parsimonious, when no need, 
Wasteful as drunkenness at undue 

times ? 
All prudent counsel as to what befits 
The golden mean, is lost on such an 

one : 
The man's fantastic will is the man's 

law. 
So here — avc call the treasure knowl- 
edge, say, 
Increased beyond the fleshly facul- 
ty- 
Heaven opened to a soul while yet on 

earth. 
Earth forced on a soul's use while 

seeing heaven : 
The man is witless of the size, the 

sum, 
The value in proportion of all things, 
Or whether it be little or be much. 



112 



AN EPISTLE. 



Discourse to him of prodigious arma- 

lUl'UtS 

Assembled to besiege his eity now, 
A.ud of the jiassing of a mule with 

gourds — 
'Tis one ! Then take it on tlie other 

side, 
Speak of some tritliug fact, — he will 

gaze rapt 
With stupor at its very littleness 
(Far as I see), as if in that indeed 
He caught prodigious import, whole 

results ; 
And so will turn to us the by-stauders 
In ever the same stupor (note this 

point), 
That we, too, see not with his opened 

eyes. 
Wonder and doubt come wrongly into 

Preposterously, at cross purposes. 
Should his child sicken unto death, — 

why, look 
For scarce abatement of his cheerful- 
ness, 
Or pretermission of the daily craft ! 
While a word, gesture, glance from 

that same child 
At play or in the school or laid 

asleep. 
Will startle him to an agony of fear, 
Exasperation, just as like. Demand 
The reason why — " 'tis but a word," 

object — 
" A gesture " — he regards thee as our 

lord 
Who lived there in the pyramid alone. 
Looked at us (dost thou mind ?) when, 

being young. 
We both would unadvisedly recite 
Some charm's beginning, from that 

book of his, 
Able to bill the sun throb wide and 

burst 
All into stars, as suns grown old are 

wont. 
Thou and the child have each a veil 

alike 
Thrown o'er your heads, from under 

which ye both 
Stretch your blind hands and trifle 

with a match 
Orer a mine of Greek fire, did ye 

know ! 
He holds on firmly to some thread of 

life — 
(It is tlu; life to lead jierforccdly) 
Which runs across some vast, distract- 
ing orb 



Of glory on either side that meagre 

thread. 
Which, conscious of, he must not enter 

yet — 
The si>iritual life around the earthly 

life : 
The law of that is known to him as 

this, 
His lu'art and brain move there, his 

feet stay here. 
So is the man perplext with impulses 
Sudden to start off crosswise, not 

straight on. 
Proclaiming what is right and wrong 

across, 
And not along, this black thread 

through the blaze — 
"It should be" balked by "here it 

canni)t be.'' 
And oft the man's soul springs into 

his face 
As if he saw again and heard again 
His sage that bade him " Rise," and 

he dill rise. 
Something, a word, a tick o' the blood 

within 
Admonishes : then back he sinks at 

once 
To ashes, who was very fire before, 
In sedulous recurrence to his trade 
Whereby he earneth him the daily 

broad ; 
And studiously the humbler for that 

pride, 
Professedly the faultier that he knows 
God's secret, while he holds the thread 

of life. 
Indeed the especial marking of the 

man 
Is prone submission to the heavenly 

will — 
Seeing it, what it is, and why it is. 
'Sayetli, he will wait ])atient to the 

last 
For that same death which must re- 
store his b(!ing 
To equilibrium, body loosening soul 
Divorced even now by premature full 

growth : 
He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to 

live 
So long as God please, and just how 

God please. 
He even seeketh not to please God 

more 
(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as 

God please. 
Hence, I perceive not he affects to 

preach 



AN EPISTLE. 



113 



The doctrine of his sect whate'er it 

be, 
Make proselytes as luiwluicii tliirst to 

do : 
How can \w fjfive his iiei}:;hbor the real 

ground, 
His own conviction ? Ardent as ho 

is — 
Call his great truth a lie, why, still 

the old 
"lie it as God please" re-assureth 

him. 
I probed the sore as thy disciple 

should : 
"IIow, beast," said I, "this stolid 

carelessness 
Gufflceth thee, when Rome is on her 

inarch 
To stamp out like a little spark thy 

town, 
Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at 

once ? " 
He merely looked with his large eyes 

on me. 
The man is apathetic, you deduce ? 
Contrariwise, he loves both old and 

young. 
Able and weak, affects the very brutes 
And birds — how sav 1 ? tlowers of 

the field — 
As a wise workman recogni/os tools 
In a master's workshop, loving what 

tb(\v make. 
Thus is the man as harmh^ss as a 

lamb : 
Only imjiatient, let him do his best. 
At ignorance and carelessness and 

sin — 
An indignation which is promptly 

curbed : 
As when in certain travel I have 

feigned 
To be an ignoramus in our art 
According to some preconceived de- 
sign. 
And hapi)ened to hear the land's prac- 
titioners 
Steeped in conceit sublimed by igno- 
rance, 
Prattle fantastically on disease, 
Its cause and cnre — and I nnist liold 

my peace 1 

Thou wilt oV)ject — Why have I 

not (^re this 
Sought out the sage himself, the Naz- 

arcne 
Who wrought this cure, inquiring at 

the source, 



Conferring with the frankness that 

befits? 
Alas ! it grieveth me, the learned 

leech 
PerislKxl in a tumult, many years ago. 
Accused, — our learning's fate, — of 

wizardry. 
Rebellion, to tiie setting up a rule 
And creed prodigious as described to 

me. 
His death, which happened when the 

earthquake fell 
(Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the 

loss 
To occult learning in our lord the 

sago 
Who lived there in the pyramid 

aloiHi), 
Was wrouglit by the mad people — 

that's their wont ! 
On vain recourse;, as I conjecture it, 
To his tried virtue, for miraculous 

help — 
IIow could he stop the earthquake ? 

That's their way ! 
The other inqiutations must be lies : 
But take one, though I loath to give 

it thee. 
In mere respect for any good man's 

fame. 
(And after all, our patient Lazarus 
Is stark mad ; should we count on 

what he says ? 
Perhaps not : though in writing to a 

leech 
'Tis well to keep back nothing of a 

case.) 
This man so cured regards the curer, 

then, 
As — C!o(l forgive me! who but C!od 

himself. 
Creator and sustainer of the world, 
Tliat came and dwelt in liesh on it 

a wliihi ! 
— 'Sayeth that, such an one was lioni 

and lived, 
Taught, healed the sick, broke brcjel 

at his own house. 
Then dicnl, with Lararns by, for aught 

I know, 
Aiul yet was . . . what I said nor 

choose repeat. 
And nuist have so avouched himsidf, 

in fact. 
In hearing of this very Lazarus 
Who saith — but why all this of wliat 

he saitli ? 
Why write of trivial matters, things 

of price 



114 



CALIBAN UPON SET E BOS. 



Calling at every moment for remark ? 
I noticed on the margin of a pool 
Blue-flowering borage, the Alejipo 

sort, 
Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is 

strange ! 

Thy pardon for this long and tedious 

case, 
Which, now that I review it, needs 

must seem 
Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth ! 
Nor I myself discern in what is 

writ 
Good cause for the peculiar interest 
And awe indeed this man has touched 

me with. 
Perhaps the journey's end, the weari- 
ness 
Had wrought upon me first. I met 

him thus : 
I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken 

hills 
Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out 

there came 
A moon made like a face with certain 

spots 
Multiform, manifold, and menacing : 
Then a wind rose behind me. So we 

met 
In this old sleepy town at unaware, 
The man and I. I send thee what is 

writ. 
Regard it as a chance, a matter risked 
To this ambiguous Syrian : he may 

lose, 
Or steal, or give it thee with equal 

good. 
Jerusalem's repose shall make 

amends 
For time this letter wastes, thy time 

and mine ; 
Till when, once more thy pardon and 

farewell ! 

The very God ! think, Abib ; dost 
thou think ? 

So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving 
too — 

So, through the thunder comes a hu- 
man voice 

Saying, " O heart I made, a heart beats 
here ! 

Face, my hands fashioned, see it in 
myself! 

Thou hast no power nor may'st con- 
ceive of mine : 

But love I gave thee, with myself to 
love, 



And thou must love me who have 

died for Miee ! " 
The madman saith He said so: it is 

strange. 



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS; 

OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE 
ISLAND. 



" Tliou tlioughtest that I was altogether 
such a. one as thyself." 

['Will sprawl, now that the heat of 
day is best. 

Flat on his belly in the pit's much 
mire, 

With elbows wide, fists clinched to 
prop his chin. 

And, while he kicks both feet in the 
cool slush. 

And feels about his spine small eft- 
things course. 

Run in and out each arm, and make 
him laugh : 

And while above his head a pompion- 
plant, 

Coating the cave-top as a brovr its 
eye. 

Creeps down to touch and tickle hair 
and beard, 

And now a flower drops with a bee 
inside. 

And now a fruit to snap at, catch and 
crunch, — 

He looks out o'er yon sea which sun- 
beams cross 

And recross till they weave a spider- 
web 

(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks 
at times). 

And talks to his own self, howe'er he 
l>l(>ase, 

Touching that other, whom his dam 
called God. 

Because to talk about Him, vexes 
— ha. 

Could He but know ! and time to vex 
is now. 

When talk is safer than in winter- 
time. 

Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleej) 

In confidence he drudges at tbeii 
task ; 



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS 



115 



And it is good to cheat the pair, and 

gibe, 
Letting the rank tongue blossom into 

speech.] 

Setcbos, Setebos, and Setebos ! 
'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' 
the moon. 

'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to 

match, 
But not the stard ; the stars came 

otherwise ; 
Only made clouds, winds, meteors, 

such as that : 
Also this isle, what lives and grows 

thereon, 
And snaky sea which rounds and 

ends the same. 

'Thinketh, it came of being ill at 

ease : 
He hated that He cannot change His 

cold. 
Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy 

Hsh 
That longed to 'scape the rock-stream 

where she lived, 
And thaw lierself within the luke- 
warm brine 
O' the lazy sea, her stream thrusts far 

amid, 
A crystal spike 'twixt two warm 

walls of wave ; 
Only, she ever sickened, found re- 
pulse 
At the other kind of water, not her 

life 
(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred 

o' the sun). 
Flounced back from bliss she was not 

born to breathe. 
And in her old bounds buried her 

despair. 
Hating and loving warmth alike ; so 

He. 

Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, 
this isle. 

Trees and the fowls here, beast and 
creeping thing. 

Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a 
leech ; 

Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of 
foam. 

That floats and feeds ; a certain bad- 
ger brown. 

He hath watched hunt with that 
slant white-wedge eye 



By moonlight ; and the pie with the 

loTig tongue 
Tliat pricks deep into oakwarts for a 

worm. 
And says a plain word when she finds 

her prize, 
But will not cat the ants ; the ants 

themselves 
That build a wall of seeds and settled 

stalks 
About tlunr hole — He made all these 

and more. 
Made all we see, and us, in spite: 

how else ? 
He could not. Himself, make a second 

self 
To l)e His mate : as well have made 

Himself: 
He would not make what He mislikes 

or slights, 
An eyesore to Him, or not worth His 

pains ; 
But did, in envy, listlessness, or sport, 
Make what Himself would fain, in a 

manner, be — 
"Weaker in most points, stronger in a 

few. 
Worthy, and yet mere playthings all 

the while. 
Things He admires and mocks too, — 

that is it. 
Because, so bi-ave, so better though 

they be. 
It nothing skills if He begin to plague. 
Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into 

mash. 
Add honeycomb and pods, I have 

perceived. 
Which bite like finches when they 

bill and kiss, — 
Then, wlum froth rises bladdery, 

drink up all, 
Quick, (piick, till maggots scamper 

through my brain ; 
Last, throw me on my back i' the 

seeded thyme. 
And wanton, wishing I were born a 

bird. 
Put case, unable to be what I wish, 
I yet could make a live bird out of 

clay : 
Would not I take clay, pinch my 

Caliban 
Able to fly ? — for, there, see, he hath 

wings, 
And great comb like the hoopoe's to 

admire. 
And there, a sting to do his foes of- 
fence, 



116 



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS. 



There, and I will that he begin to 

live, 
Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the 

horns 
Of grigs high up that make the 

merry din 
Saucj- through their veined wings, 

and mind me not. 
In which feat, if his leg snapped, 

brittle clay, 
And he lay stupid-like, — why, I 

should laugh ; 
And if he, spying me, should fall to 

weep. 
Beseech me to be good, repair his 

wrong. 
Bid his poor leg smart less or grow 

again, — 
"Well, as the chance were, this might 

take or else 
Not take my fancy : I might hear his 

cry. 
And give the manikin three legs for 

one, 
Or pluck the other off, leave him like 

an egg. 
And lessoned he was mine and merely 

clay. 
"Were this no pleasure, lying in the 

thyme, 
Drinking the mash, with brain be- 
come alive. 
Making and marring clay at will ? 

So He. 

'Thinkexh, such shows nor right nor 

wrong in Him, 
Nor kind, nor cruel : He is strong and 

Lord. 
'Am strong myself compared to yon- 
der ciabs 
That march now from the mountain 

to the sea ; 
'Let twenty pass, and stone the 

twenty-first, 
Loving not, hating not, just choosing 

so. 
'Say, the first straggler that boasts 

purple spots 
Shall join the file, one pincer twisted 

'Say, This bruised fellow shall receive 

a worm, 
And two worms he whose nippers 

end in red 
As it likes me each time, I do : so He. 

"Well then, 'supi^oseth He is good i' 
the main. 



Placable if His mind and ways were 

guessed, 
But rougher than His handiwork, be 

sure ! 
Oh, He hath made things worthier 

than Himself, 
And envieth that, so helped, such 

things do more 
Than He who made them ! "What 

consoles but this ? 
That they, unless through Him, do 

naught at all,' 
And must submit : what other use in 

things ? 
'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder- 
joint 
That, blown through, gives exact the 

scream o' the jay 
"When from her wing you twitch the 

feathers blue : 
Sound this, and little birds that hate 

the jay 
Flock within stone's throw, glad their 

foe is hurt : 
Put case such pipe could prattle and 

boast forsooth 
"I catch the birds, I am the crafty 

thing, 
I make the cry my maker cannot 

make 
With his great round mouth ; he must 

blow through mine ! " 
"Would not I smash it with my foot ? 

So He. 

But wherefore rough, why cold and 

ill at ease ? 
Alia, that is a question ! Ask, for 

that, 
"What knows, — the something over 

Setebos 
That made Him, or He, may be, found 

and fought, 
"Worsted, drove off and did to noth- 
ing, perchance. 
There may be something quiet o'er 

His head, 
Out of His reach, that feels nor joy 

nor grief. 
Since both derive from weakness in 

some way. 
I joy because the quails come ; would 

not joy 
Could I bring quails here when I have 

a mind : 
This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, 

doth. 
'Esteemeth stars the outi^osts of its 

couch, 



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS. 



117 



But never spends much thought nor 

care that way. 
II may look up, work up, — the worse 

for those 
It works on ! 'Careth but for Sete- 

bos 
Tlie maiiy-lianded as a cuttle-fish. 
Who, makiiii; Himself feared through 

what He does, 
Looks up, first, and perceives he can- 
not soar 
To what is quiet and hath happy life ; 
Next looks down here, and out of 

very spite 
Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon 

I'eal , 
These good things to match those, as 

hips do grapes. 
'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and 

sport. 
Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at 

his books 
Careless and lofty, lord now of the 

isle : 
Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad 

leaves, arrow-shaped, 
Wrote thereon, he knows what, pro- 
digious words ; 
Has 25eeled a wand and called it by a 

name ; 
Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's 

robe 
The eyed skin of a supple ocelot ; 
And hath an ounce sleeker than 

youngling mole, 
A fc ur-legged serpent he makes cower 

and couch, 
Now snarl, now hold its breath and 

mind his eye. 
And saith she is Miranda and my 

wife ; 
'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill 

crane 
He bids go wade for fish and straight 

disgorge ; 
Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he 

snared, 
Blinded the eyes of, and brought 

soinewliat tame. 
And split its toe-webs, and now pens 

the drudge 
In a hole o' the rock, and calls him 

Caliban ; 
A bitter heart that bides its time and 

bites. 
'Plays thus at being Prosper in a 

way, 
Taketh his mirth with make-believes : 

so He. 



His dam held that the Quiet made all 

things 
Which Setebos vexed only : 'holds 

not so. 
Who made them weak, meant wea!;- 

ness He might vex. 
Had He meant other, while His hand 

was in, 
Why not make horny eyes no thorn 

(;ould prick, 
Or plate my scalp with bone against 

the snow. 
Or overscale my flesh 'neatli joint and 

joint. 
Like an ore's armor ? Ay, — so spoil 

His sport ! 
He is the One now : only He doth all. 

'Saith, He may like, perchance, what 

profits Him. 
Ay, himself loves what does him 

good ; but why ? 
'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded 

beast 
Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his 

nose, 
But, had he eyes, would want no 

help, would hate 
Or love, just as it liked him : He hath 

eyes. 
Also it pleaseth Setebos to work, 
Use all His hands, and exercise much 

craft, 
By no means for the love of what is 

worked. 
'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the 

world 
When all goes right, in this safe sum- 
mer-time, 
And he wants little, hungers, aches 

not much. 
Than trying what to do with wit and 

strength. 
'Falls to make something : 'piled yon 

jjile of turfs. 
And squared and stuck there squares 

of soft white chalk. 
And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a 

moon on each. 
And set uji endwise certain spikes of 

tree. 
And crowned the whole with a sloth's 

skull a-top, 
Found dead i' the woods, too hard 

for one to kill. 
No use at all i' the work, for work's 

sole sake ; 
'Shall some day knock it down again ; 

so He. 



118 



CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS. 



'Saith He is terrible : watch His feats 

in i)roof ! 
One hurricane will sjjoil six good 

months' hope. 
He hath a spite against me, that I 

know, 
Just as He favors Prosper, who knows 

why ? 
So it is, all the same, as well I find. 
'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced 

them tirm 
With stone and stake to stop she- 
tortoises 
Crawling to lay their eggs here : well, 

one wave. 
Feeling the foot of Him upon its 

neck. 
Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its 

large tongue. 
And licked the whole labor flat : so 

much for spite. 
'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder 

it lies) 
Where, half an hour before, I slept 

i' the shade : 
Often they scatter sparkles : there is 

force ! 
'Dug up a newt He may have envied 

once 
And turned to stone, shut up inside a 

stone 
Please Him and hinder this ? — What 

Prosper does ? 
Aha, if he would tell me how ! Not 

He! 
There is the sport : discover how or 

die! 
All need not die, for of the things o' 

the isle 
Some flee afar, some dive, some run 

up trees ; 
Those at His mercy, — why, they 

please Him most 
When . . . when . . . well, never try 

the same way twice ! 
Tlepeat what act has pleased, He may 

grow wroth. 
\o\x nuxst not know His ways, and 

play Him off. 
Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like him- 
self : 
'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing 

fears 
But steals the nut from underneath 

my thumb, 
And when I threat, bites stoutly in 

defence : 
'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise, 
Curia up into a ball, pretending death 



For fright at my approach : the two 

ways please. 
But what would move my choler more 

than this, 
That either creature counted on its 

life 
To-morrow and next day and all days 

to come. 
Saying forsooth in the inmost of ita 

heart, 
" Because he did so yesterday with me. 
And otherwise with such another 

brute. 
So must he do henceforth and al- 
ways."— Ay? 
'Would teach the reasoning couple 

what "must" means : 
'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord f 

So He. 

'Conceiveth all things will continue 

thus. 
And wi shall have to live in fear of 

Him 
So long as He lives, keeps His 

strength : no change. 
If He have done His best, make no 

new world 
To please Him more, so leave off 

watching this, — 
n He surprise not even the Quiet's 

self 
Some strange day, — or, suppose, 

grow into it 
As grubs grow butterflies : else, here 

are we. 
And there is He, and nowhere help at 

all. 

'Believeth with the life, the pain shall 

stop. 
His dam held different, that after 

death 
He both plagued enemies and fsasted 

friends : 
Idly ! He doth His worst in this our 

life. 
Giving just respite lest we die through 

pain. 
Saving last pain for worst, — with 

which, an end. 
Meanwhile, the best way to escape 

His ire 
Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees 

himself. 
Yonder two flies, with purple films 

and pink. 
Bask on the pompion-bell above : kills 

both. 



SA UL. 



119 



'Sees two bliick painful beetles roll 

their ))all 
On head and tail as if to save their 

iives : 
Moves them the stick away they 

strive to clear. 

Even so, 'would have Him miscon- 
ceive, suppose 
This Caliban strives hard and ails no 

less. 
And alwavs, above all else, envies 

Him'; 
Wherefore he mainly dances on dark 

nights. 
Moans in the sun, gets under holes to 

laugh, 
And never speaks his inind save 

hous(Hl as now : 
Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught 

me here, 
O'erheard this speech, and asked, 

" What chucklest at ? " 
'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger 

off, 
Or of my three kid yearlings burn 

the best. 
Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree. 
Or push my tame beast for the ore to 

taste : 
While myself lit a fire, and made a 

song 
And sung it, " What I hate, he conse- 
crate 
To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate 
For Thee ; what see for envy in poor 

me?" 



Hoping tlu! whiles since evils some- 
times mend, 

Warts rub away and sores are cured 
with slime, 

That some strange day, will either 
the Quiet cat(;h 

And conquer Setebos, or likelier 
He 

Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as 
die. 



[What, what? A curtain o'er the 

world at once ! 
Crickets stop hissing; not a bird — 

or, yes, 
There scuds His raven that hath told 

Him all ! 
It was fool's play, this prattling ! 

Ha ! The wind 
Shoulders the pillared dust, death's 

house o' the move, 
And fast invading fires begin ! White 

blaze — 
A tree's head snaps — and there, 

there, there, there, there. 
His thundiir follows ! Fool to gibe 

at Him ! 
Lo ! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos ! 
'Maketh his teeth meet through his 

upper lip. 
Will let those quails fly, will not eat 

this month 
One little mess of whelks, so he may 

'scape !] 



SAUL. 



Said Abner, " At last thou art come ! Ere I tell, ere thou speak. 

Kiss my cheek, wish me well ! " Then 1 wished it, and did kiss his 

cheek. 
And he, " Since tin; King, O my friend ! for thy countenance sent, 
Neitlusr drunke^n nor (>aten have we ; nor until from his tent 
Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet. 
Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet. 
For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days, 
Not a sound hath cscajx'd to fliy servants, of prayer nor of praise, 
To betok(!n that Saul and tlic Sjiirit hav(! ended their strife, 
And that, faint in liis triumph, the monarch sinks back upon lif«. 



120 SAUL. 



" Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved ! God's child with his dew- 
On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue 
Just broken to twine round thy liarp-strings, as if no wild heat 
Were now raging to torture the desert ! " 

III. 

Then I, as was meet, 
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet, 
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped ; 
1 pulled up the spear tliat obstructed, and under I stooped ; 
Hands and knees oti the slippery grass-jiatch, all withered and gone, 
Tliat extends to the se<'ond enclosure, I groped my way on 
Till I felt where the foldskirts tly open. Then once more I prayed, 
And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid 
But spoke, " Here is David, thy servant ! " And no voice replied. 
At the first I saw naught but the blackness ; but soon I descried 
A something more black than the blackness — the vast, the upright 
Main prop which sustains the pavilion : and slow into sight 
Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all. 
Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof, showed Saul. 

IV. 

He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide 

On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side ; 

He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his jiangs 

And waiting his change, the king serpent all heavily hangs, 

Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come 

With the spring-time, — so agonized Saiil, drear and stark, blind and dumb. 



Then I tuned my harp, — took off the lilies we twine round its chords 

Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide — those sunbeams like 

swords ! 
And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one, 
So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done. 
They are white, and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed 
Where the long grasses stitie the water within the stream's bed ; 
And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star 
Into eve and the blue far above us, — so blue and so far ! 

» VI. 

- - Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate 

To tly after the player ; then, what makes the crickets elate 

Till for boldness they fight one another : and then, what has weight 

To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house — 

There ai"e none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse ! 

God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear, 

To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here. 



Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand 
Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand 
And grow one in the sense of this world's life. — And then, the last song 
When the tlead man is praised on his journey — " Bear, bear him along 
With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets ! Are balm seeds not here 
To console ns ? The land has none left such as be on the bier. 



SAUL. 121 

Oh, would we iiiij;ht keep tliec, my brotlier ! " — And then, the glad chant 
Of tlie marriage, — first go the young maidens, next, slie whom we vaunt 
As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling. — And then, the great marcli 
Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch 
Naught can break ; who sliall harm them, our friends? — Then, the chorufc 

intoned 
As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. 
But I stopped here : for here in the darkness Saul groaned. 

VIII. 

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart ; 
And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered : and sparkles 'gan dart 
From the jewels that woke in his turban at once with a start 
All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart. 
So the head : but the body still moved not, still hung there erect. 
And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked, 
As I saug, — 

IX. 

" Oh, our manhood's prime vigor ! No spirit feels waste, 
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew" unbraced. 
Oh, the wild joys of living ! the leaping from rock up to rock, 
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock 
Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, 
And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. 
And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine. 
And tlie locust-fiesh stee]ied in the pitcher, the full draught of wine, 
And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell 
That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. 
How good is man's life, the mere living ! how tit to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy ! 

Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou didst guard 
Wlien he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward ? 
Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung 
The low song of the nearly departed, and hear her faint tongue 
Joining in while it could to the witness, ' Let one more attest, 
I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, and all was for best 1 ' 
Then they sung through their tears in strong triumph, not much, but tht 

rest. 
And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence grew 
Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the s])irit strained true : 
And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood of wonder and hope. 
Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye's scope, — 
Till lo, tliou art grown to a uionarch ; a peojile is thine ; 
And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head combine ! 
On one head, all the lieauty and strength, love and rage (like the throe 
riiat, a-work in the rock, helps its labor and lets the gold go) 
High ambition and deeds which surjiass it, fame crowning them, — all 
Brought to blaze on the head of one creature — King Saul ' " 

X. 

And lo, with that leap of my spirit, — heart, hand, harp, and voice, 
Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice 
Saul's fame in the light it was made for — as when, dare I say, 
The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains through its array. 
And npsoareth the cherubim-chariot — " Saul ! " cried I, and stopped. 
And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung projjped 
By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name. 
Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim. 



122 SAUL. 

And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that hekl (he alone, 

While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone 

A year's snow bound about for a breastplate, — leaves grasp of the sheet ? 

Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet. 

And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive j'et, your mountain of old, 

"With his i"ents, the successive bequeathiugs of ages untold — 

Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar 

Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the temj^est — all hail, there they are ! 

— Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest 

Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on his crest 

For their food in the ardors of summer. "One long shudder thrilled 

All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled 

At the King's self left standing before me, released and aware. 

What was gone, what remained ? All to traverse 'twi;:t hope and despair. 

Death was past, life not come : so he waited. A while his right hand 

Held the brow, helped the eyes, left too vacant, forthwith toremand 

To their place what new objects should enter : 'twas Saul as before. 

I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more 

Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore, 

At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean — a sun's slow decline 

Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and intwine 

Base with base to knit strength more intensely : so, arm folded arm 

O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided. 

XI. 

What spell or what charm 
(For, a while there was trouble within me), what next should I urge 
To sustain him where song had restored him ? — Song filled to the verge 
His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields 
Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty : beyond, on what fields, 
Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye 
And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by ? 
He saith, " It is good ; " still he drinks not : he lets me ]5raise life, 
Gives assent, yet would die for his own part. 

XII. 

Then fancies grew rife 
Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep 
Fed in silence — above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep ; 
And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie 
'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and tlie sky. 
And I laughed — " Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks. 
Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks. 
Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show 
Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know ! 
Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains. 
And the prudence that keeps what men strive for." And now these olc 

trains 
Of vague thought came again ; I grew surer ; so, once more the string 
Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus — 

XIII. 

"Yea, my King," 
I began — " thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring 
From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute : * 
In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit. 
Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree, —how its stem trembled first 
Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler ; then safely outburst 



SAUL. 123 

The fan-branches all round ; and thou mindcst when these too, in turn 
Broke a-blooni and the palm-ti'ee seemed perfect : yet more was to learn, 
E'en the good tliat comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight, 
AVhen their juice brings a cure for all sorrow ? or care for the plight 
Of the jialm's self whose slow growth produced them ? Not so ! stem and 

branch 
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall stanch 
Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine. 
Leave the tlesh to the fate it was fit for ! the spirit be thine ! 
By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy- 
More indeed, than at first when, inconscious, the life of a boy. 
Crush that life, and behold its wine running ! Each deed tliou hast done 
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world : until e'en as the sun 
Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though tcniiiests efface, 
Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace 
The results of his past summer-prime, — so, each ray of thy will. 
Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill 
Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they too give forth 
A like cheer to their sons : who in turn, fill the South and the North 
With the radiance th^^ deed was the germ of. Carouse in the past ! 
But the license of age has its limit : thou diest at last. 
As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height. 
So with man — so his power and his beauty forever take flight. 
No ! Again a long draught of my soul-wine ! Look forth o'er the years ! 
Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual ; begin with the seer's ! 
Is Saul dead ? In the depth of the vale make his tomb — bid arise 
A gray mountain of marl)le lieajied four-square, till, built to the skies, 
Let it mark where the great First King slumbers : whose fame would ye 

know ? 
Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go 
In great characters cut by the scribe, — Such was Saul, so he did; 
With the sages directing the work, by the pojiulace chid, — 
For not half, they'll afhrm, is comprised there ! Which fault to amend, 
In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend 
(See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record 
With the gold of the graver, Saul's story, — the statesman's great word 
Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's a-wave 
With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds rave : 
So the pen gives unborn generations tlieir due and their part 
In thy being 1 Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art ! " 

XIV. 

And behold while I sang . . . but O Thou who didst grant me, that day, 

And, before :t, not seldom hast granted thy help to essay, 

Carry on ai:d complete an adventure, — my shield and my sword 

In that act wliere jny soul was thy servant, thy word was my word, — 

Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavor 

And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as ever 

On the new stretch of heaven above me — till, mighty f.o save. 

Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance — God's throne from man's 

grave ! 
Let me tell out my tale to its ending — my voice to my heart 
Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I took part, 
As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep 1 
And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep, 
For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves 
The dawn struggling witli night on his shoulder, and Kidron retrievas 
Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine. 



1 24 SA UL. 

* 

XV. 

I say then, — my song 
While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and, ever more strong. 
Made a proffer of good to console him — he slowly resumed 
His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed 
His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes 
Of his turban, and see — the huge sweat that his countenance bathes, 
He wipes off with the robe ; and he girds now his loins as of yore, 
And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before. 
He is Saul, ye remember in glory, — ere error had bent 
Tlie broad brow from the daily communion ; and still, though nmch spent 
Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did choose, 
To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose. 
So sank he along by the tent-prop, still, stayed by the pile 
Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there a while, 
And sat out my singing — one arm round the tent-prop, to raise 
His bent head, and the other hung slack — till I touched on the praise 
I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there ; 
And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 'ware 
That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees 
Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak-roots which please 
To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know 
If the best I could do had brought solace : he sjioke not, but slow 
Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care 
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow : through my hair 
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind power- 
All ray face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower. 
Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine — 
And oh, all my heart how it loved him ! but where was the sign ? 
I yearned — " Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss, 
I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this ; 
I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence 
As this moment, — had love but the warrant, love's heart to dispense ! " 

XVI. 

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more — no song more ! outbroke « 



" I have gone the whole round of creation : I saw and I spoke ; 

f , a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain 

And pronounced on the rest of his handwork — returned him again 

His creation's approval or censure : I spoke as I saw. 

I report, as a man may of God's work — all's love, yet all's law. 

Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked 

To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked. 

Have I knowledge ? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare. 

Have T forethought ? how purblind, bow blank, to the Infinite Care f 

Do I task any faculty highest to image success? 

I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more and no less. 

In the kind I imagined, full-fronts nns and God is seen God 

In the star, in the stone, in the fiesh, in the soul and the clod. 

And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew 

(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too) 

The submission of man's notliing-perfect to God's all-complete, 

As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. 

Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known, 

I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own. 



SAUL. 125 

There's a faoulty pl(\isant to exercise, hard to hoodwink, 

I am fain to keeji still in ah('yanc(> (I laugh as I tliink), 

Lest, insisting to ciaini and i)arade in it, wot ye, I worst 

E'en the Giver in one gift. — Behold, I could love if I durst ! 

But I sink tin; pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake 

God's own specnl in tlie (hh; way of lov(^ : I ahstain fur love's sake. 

— What, my soul? sc;e thus far and no farther? when doors great and small, 

Mine and ninety flew ope at our tou(!h, should the Imndredth appal ? 

In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all ? 

Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, 

That I douht his own love can compete with it? Here the parts shift? 

Here, the creature suriiass the creator, — the end, what began? 

Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man. 

And dare doubt he alone shall not helji him, who yet alone can ? 

Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power, 

To bestow on tliis Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower 

Of the life he was gifted and filled with ? to make such a soul. 

Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole ? 

And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest) 

These good things lieing given, to go on, and give one more, the best? 

Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height 

This perfection, — succeed, with life's dayspring, death's minute of night? 

Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul, the mistake, 

Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now, — and bid him awake 

From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set 

Clear and safe in new light and new life, — a new harmony yet 

To be run and continued, and ended — who knows ? — or endure ! 

The man taught enough by lif(!'s dream, of the rest to make sure ; 

By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, 

And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this. 



" I believe it ! 'Tis thou, God, tliat givest, 'tis I who receive : 

In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe. 

All's one gift : thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my prayer. 

As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. 

From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth : 

I will ? — tlie mere atoms desjiise me ! Why am I not loth 

To look that, even that in the face too V Why is it I dare 

Think but lightlj' of such itnpuissance ? "What stops my despair ? 

This ; — 'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do I 

See the King — I would help him, Init cannot, the wishes fall through. 

vJould I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, 

To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — knowing which, 

I know that i7iy service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now ! 

Would I suffer for liim that I love ? So wouldst thou — so wilt thou ! 

So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown — 

And thy love fill infinituih^ wholly, nor leave up nor down 

One spot f'or the creature to stand in ! It is by no breath. 

Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death ! 

As thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved 

Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved ! 

He who did most, shall bear most ; the strongest shall stand the most weak 

'Tis the weakness in .strength, that I cry for ! my flesh, that I seek 

In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be 

A Face like my face that receives the(! ; a Man like to me, 

Tliou shalt love and be loved by, forever : a Hand like this hand 

Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the Christ stand t " 



126 



RABBI BEN EZRA. 



I know not too well how I found mj^ way liome in tlie night. 

There were witnesses, cohorts about lue, to left and to right, 

Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware : 

I repressed, I got tlirough them as hardly, as strugglingly there, 

As a runner beset by the populace famished for news — 

Life or deatli. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews; 

And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot 

Out in fire the strong paint of pent knowledge : but I fainted not, 

For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed 

All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, 

Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest. 

Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth — 

Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth ; 

In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills ; 

In the shuddering forests' held breath ; in the sudden wind-thrilla ; 

In the startletl wild beasts that bore oft, each with eye sidling still 

Though averted with wonder and dread ; in the birds stiff and chill 

That rose heavily as I approached them, made stupid with awe : 

E'en the serpent that slid away silent — he felt the new law. 

The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers ; 

The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers : 

And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low. 

With their obstinate, all but hushed voices — " E'en so, it is so ! " 



RABBI BEN EZRA. 



Grow old along with me ! 

The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first 

was made : 
Our times are in His hand 
Who saith, " A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half ; trust God : 

see all, nor be afraid ! " 



u. 

Not that, amassing flowers, 

Youth sighed, " Which rose make 

ours. 
Which lily leave and then as best 

recall ! " 
Not that, admiring stars, 
It yearned, " Nor Jove, nor Mars ; 
Mine be some figured flame' which 

blends, transcends them all ! " 



Not for such hopes and fears 
Annulling youth's brief years. 
Do I remonstrate : folly wide the 
markl 



Rather I prize the doubt 
Low kinds exist without, 
Finished and finite clods, untroubled 
by a spark. 



Poor vaunt of life indeed. 

Were man but formed to feed 

On joy, to solely seek and find and 

feast. 
Such feasting ended, then 
As sure an end to men ; 
Irks care the crop-full bird ? Frets 

doubt the maw-crammed beast ? 



Rejoice we are allied 

To That which doth provide 

And not partake, effect and not 

receive ! 
A spark disturbs our clod : 
Nearer we hold of God 
Who gives, than of His tribes that 

take, I must believe. 

VI. 

Then, welcome each rebuff 
That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand 
but go ! 



RABBI BEN EZRA. 



127 



Be our joys tliree-parts pain ! 
Strive, and liohi dieap the strain ; 
Learn, nor aecount the pang ; dare, 
never grudge the throe ! 



For thence, — a paradox 

Which comforts while it mocks, — 

Shall life succeed in that it seems to 

fail: 
"What I aspired to be. 
And was not, comforts me : 
A brute I might have been, but would 

not sink 1' the scale. 



VIII. 

What is he but a brute 
Whose flesh hath soul to suit, 
Whose spirit \TOrks lest arms and legs 

want play ? 
To man, propose this test — 
Thy body at its best, 
How far can that project thy soul on 

its lone way ? 



Yet gifts should prove their use : 

I own the Past profuse 

Of power each side, perfection every 

turn : 
Eyes, ears took in their dole. 
Brain treasured up the whole ; 
Should not the heart beat once " How 

good to live and learn " ? 



Not once beat " Praise be thine ! 

I see the whole design, 

I, who saw power, see now love per- 
fect too. 

Perfect I call Thy plan : 

Thanks that I was a man ! 

Maker, remake, complete, — I trust 
what Thou shalt do ! " 



For pleasant is this flesh ; 
Our soul, in its rose-mesh 
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns 

for rest : 
Would we some prize might hold 
To match those manifold 
Possessions of the brute, — gain most, 

as we did best ! " 



Let us not always say 

" Spite of this fiesh to-day 

I strove, made head, gained ground 

upon the whole ! " 
As the bird wings and sings, 
Let us cry " All good things 
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, 

now, than flesh hel^js soul ! " 

XIII. 

Therefore I summon age 

To grant youth's heritage, 

Life's struggle having so far reached 

its term : 
Thence shall I pass, approved 
A man, for aye removed 
From the developed brute ; a God 

though in the germ. 

xrv. 
And I shall thereupon 
Take rest, ere I be gone 
Once more on my adventure brave 

and new : 
Fearless and unperplexed. 
When I wage battle next, 
What weapons to select, what armor 

to indue. 

XV. 

Youth ended, I shall try 
My gain or loss thereby ; 
Leave the fire ashes, what survives 

is gold : 
And I shall weigh the same, 
Give life its praise or blame : 
Young, all lay in dispute ; I shall 

know, being old. 



For, note when evening shuts, 

A certain moment cuts 

The deed off, calls the glory from the 

gray: 
A whisper from the west 
Shoots — " Add this to the rest, 
Take it and try its worth : here dies 

another day." 



So, still within this life. 
Though lifted o'er its strife, 
Let me discern, compare, pronounce 
at last, 



128 



RABBI BEN EZRA. 



" This rage was right i' the main, 
That acquiescence vain : 
The Future I may face now I have 
proved the Past." 



xviri. 
For more is not reserved 
To man, with soul just nerved 
To act to-morrow what he learns to- 
day : 
Here, work enough to watch 
The Master work, and catch 
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of 
the tool's true play. 

XIX. 

As it was better, youth 

Should strive, through acts uncouth, 

Toward making, than repose on aught 

found :nade : 
So, better, age, exempt 
From strife, should know, than tempt 
Further. Thou waitedst age • wait 

death, nor be afraid ! 



Enough now, if the Right 

And Good and Infinite 

Be named here, as thou callest thy 

hand thine own. 
With knowledge absolute, 
Subject to no dispute 
From fools that crowded youth, nor 

let thee feel alone. 



XXI. 

Be there, for once and all. 
Severed great minds from small. 
Announced to each his station in the 

Past ! 
"Was I, the world arraigned, 
Were they, my soul disdained. 
Right ? Let age speak the truth and 

give us peace at last ! 



XXII. 

Now, who shall arbitrate ? 

Ten men love what I hate, 

Shun what I follow, slight what I re- 
ceive ; 

Ten, who in ears and eyes 

Match me : we all surmise, 

They, this thing, and I, that : whom 
shall my soul believe ? 



XXIII. 

Not on the vulgar mass 

Called " work," must sentence pass. 

Things done, that took the eye and 

had the price ; 
O'er which, from level stand, 
The low world laid its hand, 
Found straightway to its mind, could 

value in a trice : 



XXIV. 

But all, the world's coarse thumb 

And finger failed to plumb, 

So passed in making up the main ac- 
count : 

All Instincts immature, 

All purposes unsure. 

That weighed not as his work, yet 
swelled the man's amount : 

XXV. 

Thoughts hardly to be packed 

Into a narrow act. 

Fancies that broke through language 

and escaped : 
All I could never be, 
All, men ignored in me, 
This, I was worth to God, whose 

wheel the pitcher shaped. 



Ay, note that Potter's wheel, 

That metaphor ! and feel 

Why time spins fast, why passive lies 

our clay, — 
Thou, to whom fools propound. 
When the wine makes its round, 
" Since life fleets, all is change ; the 

Past gone, seize to-day ! " 

XXVII. 

Fool ! All that is, at all, 

Lasts ever, past recall ; 

Earth changes, but thy soul and God 

stand sure : 
What entered into thee, 
That was, is, and shall be : 
Time's wheel runs back or stops : 

Potter and clay endure. 

XXVIII. 

He fixed thee mid this dance 
Of plastic circumstance, 
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst 
fain arrest : 



EPILOGUE. 



129 



]V[:ichinery just meant 
To give thy soul its bent, 
Try tliee, and turn thee forth suffi- 
ciently impressed. 

XXIX. 

What though the earlier grooves 
Which ran the laughing loves 
Around thy base, no longer pause and 

press ? 
What though, about thy rim, 
Skull-things in order grim 
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the 

sterner stress ? 



Look not thou down but up ! 

To uses of a cup. 

The festal board, lamp's flash, and 

trumpet's peal, 
The new wine's foaming flow, 
The Master's lips aglow ! 
Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what 

needst thou with earth's wheel? 

XXXI. 

But I need, now as then. 
Thee, God, who mouldest men ! 
And since, not even while the whirl 

was worst. 
Did I, — to the wlieel of life 
With shapes and colors rife. 
Bound dizzily, — mistake my end, to 

slake Thy thirst : 

XXXII. 

So, take and use Thy work, 

Amend what flaws may lurk. 

What strain o' the stuff, what warp- 

ings past the aim ! 
My times be in Thy hand ! 
Perfect the cup as planned ! 
Let age approve of youth, and death 

complete the same ! 



EPILOGUE. 

FiKST Speaker, as David. 



On the first of the Feast of Feasts, 

The Dedication Day, 
When the Levites joined the priests 

At the altar in robed array, 
Gave signal to sound and say, — 



When the thousands, rear and van, 
Swarming with on(! accord. 

Became as a single man 
(Look, gesture, thought, and word), 

In praising and thanking the Lord, — 



When the singers lift up their voice, 
And the trumpets made endeavor, 

Sounding, " In God rejoice ! " 
Saying, " In Him rejoice 

Whose mercy endureth forever 1 " 



Then the Temple filled with a cloud, 
Even the House of the Lord ; 

Porch bent and pillar bowed : 
For the presence of the Lord, 

In the glory of His cloud. 
Had filled the House of the Lord. 

Second Speaker, as Remtn. 

Gone now ! All gone across the dark 
so far. 
Sharpening fast, shuddering ever, 
shutting still. 
Dwindling into the distance, dies 
that star 
Which came, stood, opened once ! 
We gazed our fill 
With upturned faces on as real a Face 
That, stooping from grave music 
and mild fire, 
Took in our homage, made a visible 
place 
Through many a depth of glory, 
gyre on gyre. 
For the dim human tribute. Was 
this true ? 
Could man indeed avail, mere praise 
of his, 
To help by rapture God's own rap- 
ture too, 
Thrill with a heart's red tinge that 
pure pale bliss ? 
Why did it end ? Who failed to beat 
the breast. 
And shriek, and throw the arms 
protesting wide. 
When a first shadow showed the star 
addressed 
Itself to motion, and on either side 
The rims contracted as the rays 
retired ; 
The music, like a fountain's sickeu- 
ing 2JUlse, 



130 



EPILOGUE. 



Subsided on itself : a while transpired 
Some vestige of a Face no pangs 
convulse, 
No prayers retard ; then even this 
was gone, 
Lost in the night at last. "We, lone 
and left 
Silent through centuries, ever and 
anon 
Venture to jjrobe again the vault 
bereft 
Of all now save the lesser lights, a mist 
Of multitudinous points, yet suns, 
men say — 
And this leaps ruby, this lurks ame- 
thyst, 
But where may hide what came 
and loved our clay ? 
How shall the sage detect in yon ex- 
panse 
The star which chose to stoop and 
stay for us ? 
Unroll the records ! Hailed ye such 
advance 
Indeed, and did your hope evanish 
thus? 
Watchers of twilight, is the worst 
averred ? 
We shall not look up, know our- 
selves are seen, 
Speak, and be sure that we again are 
heard. 
Acting or suffering, have the disk's 
serene 
Reflect our life, absorb an earthly 
flame. 
Nor doubt that, were mankind inert 
and numb. 
Its core had never crimsoned all the 
same. 
Nor, missing ours, its music fallen 
dumb? 
Oh, dread succession to a dizzy post, 
Sad sway of sceptre whose mere 
touch appals, 
Ghastly dethronement, cursed by 
those the most 
On whose repugnant brow the 
crown next falls ! 

Third Speaker. 

'I '• 

Witless alike of will and way divine. 

How heaven's high with earth's low 

should intertwine ! 
Friends, I have seen through your 

eyes : now use mine ! 



Take the least man of all mankind, 

as I ; 
Look at his head and heart, find how 

and why 
He differs from liis fellows utterly : 



Then, like me, watch when nature by 

degrees 
Grows alive round him, us in Arctic 

seas 
(They said of old) the instinctive 

water flees 



rv. 

Toward some elected point of central 

rock. 
As though, for its sake only, roamed 

the flock 
Of waves about the waste : a while 

thev mock 



With radiance caught for the occa- 
sion, — hues 

Of blackest hell now, now such reds 
and blues 

As onlj' heaven could fitly interfuse, — 



The mimic monarch of the whirlpool, 

king 
O' the current for a minute : then they 

wring 
Up by the roots and oversweep the 

thing, 



And hasten off, to play again else- 
where 

The same part, choose another peak 
as bare. 

They find and flatter, feast and fin- 
ish there. 

^^Ir. 

When you see what I tell you, — na- 
ture dance 

About each man of us, retire, ad- 
vance. 

As though the pageant's end were to 
enhance 



APPARITIONS. 



131 



His worth, and — once tie life, his 

nrnduft. sraine d — 
Roll away elsewhere, keep the strife 

sustained, 
And show thus real, a thing the North 

but feigned, — 



When yon acknowledge that one 

world could do 
All the diverse work, old yet ever 

new, 
Divide us, each from other, me from 

you,— 

XI. 

Why ! Where's the need of Temple, 

when the walls 
O' the world are that ? "What use of 

swells and falls 
From Levites' choir, priests' cries, 

and trumpet-calls ? 



That one Face, far from vanish, rather 

grows, 
Or decomposes Init to recompose, 
Become my universe that feels and 

knows ! 



A WALL. 



Oh the old wall here ! How I could 
pass 

Life in a long midsummer day. 
My feet confined to a plot of grass, 

My eyes from a wall not once away ! 



And lush and lithe do the creepers 
clothe 
Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of 
green : 
Its bald red bricks draped, nothing 
loth. 
In lappets of tangle they laugh be- 
tween. 



Now, what is it makes pulsate the 
robe? 
Why tremble the sprays ? What 
life o'erbrims 



The body, — the house, no eye can 
probe, — 
Divined as, beneath a robe, the 
limbs ? 



And there again ! But my heart may 
guess 
Who tripped behind ; and she sang 
perhaps : 
So, the old wall throbbed, and it* 
life's excess 
Died out and away in the leafy 
wraps. 



Wall upon wall are between us : life 
And song should away from heart 
to heart ! 
I — prison-bird, with a ruddy strife 
At breast, and a lip whence storm- 
notes start — 



Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing 
That's spirit : though cloistered fast, 
soar free ; 
Account as wood, brick, stone, this 
ring 
Of the rueful neighbors, and — forth 
to thee ! 



APPARITIONS. 



Sltch a starved bank of moss 
Till, that May-morn, 

Blue ran the tiash across : 
Violets were born ! 



Sky — what a scowl of cloud 

Till, near and far, 
Kay on ray split the shroud : 

Splendid, a star ! 



World — how it walled about 

Life with disgrace 
Till God's own smile came out 

That was thy face ! 



132 



NATURAL MAGTC. 



NATURAL MAGIC. 



All I can say is — I saw it ! 

The room was as bare as your Land. 

I locked in the swarth little lady, — 

I swear, 
From the head to the foot of her — 

well, quite as bare ! 
"No Nautch shall cheat me," said I, 

" taking my stand 
At this bolt which I draw!" And 

this bolt — I withdraw it, 
And there laughs the lady, not bare, 

but embowered 
"With— who knows what verdure, 

o'erfruited, o'erflowered ? 
Impossible ! Only— I saw it ! 



All I can sing is — I feel it ! 

This life was as blank as that room ; 

I let you pass in here. Precaution, 

indeed ? 
Walls, ceiling, and floor, — not a 

chance for a weed ! 
Wide opens the entrance : where's 

cold now, where's gloom ? 
No May to sow seed here, no June to 

reveal it, 
Behold you enshrined in these blooms 

of" your bringing. 
These fruits of your bearing — nay, 

birds of vour winging ! 
A fairy-tale ! Only — I feel it ! 



Time may fray the flower-face : kind 
be time or cruel, 
Jewel, from each facet, flash your 
laugh at time ! 



MAGICAL NATURE. 



Flower — I never fancied, jewel — 
I profess you ! 
Bright I see and soft I feel the out- 
side of a flower. 
Save but glow inside and — jewel, I 
should guess you. 
Dim to sight and rough to touch : 
the glory is the dower. 



You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my 
love, a jewel — 
Jewel at no mercy of a moment in 
your prime ! 



GARDEN FANCIES. 

I. THE FLOWER'S NAME. 



Here's the garden she walked across, 
Arm in my arm, such a short while 
since : 
Hark, now I push its wicket, the 
moss 
Hinders the hinges and makes them 
wince ! 
She must have reached this shrub ere 
she turned, 
As back with that murmur the 
wicket swung ; 
For she laid the poor snail, my chance 
foot spurned. 
To feed and forget it the leaves 
among. 

II. 
Down this side of the gravel-walk 
She went while her robe's edge 
brushed the box : 
And here she paused in her gracious 
talk 
To point me a moth on the milk- 
white phlox. 
Roses, ranged in valiant row, 
I will never think that she passed 
you by ! 
She loves you noble roses, I know ; 
But yonder, see, where the rock- 
plants lie ! 



This flower she stopped at, finger on 
lip. 
Stooped over, in doubt, as settling 
its claim ; 
Till she gave me, with pride to make 
noslip, 
Its soft meandering Spanish name. 
What a name ! Was it love, or praise ? 
Speech half-asleep, or song half- 
awake ? 
I must learn Spanish, one of these 
davs, , 

Only for that slow sweet name a 
sake. 



GARDEN FANCIES. 



133 



Roses, — if I livfi and do well, 

I may bring lier, one of these days, 
To fix you fast with as fine a spell, 

Fit you each with his Spanish 
phrase. 
But do not detain me now ; for she 
lingers 

There, like sunshine over the ground. 
And ever I see her soft white fingers 

Searching after the bud she found. 



Flower, you Spaniard, look that you 
grow not, 
Stay as you are and be loved for- 
ever ! 
Bud, if I kiss you 'tis that you blow 
not. 
Mind, the shut jiink mouth opens 
never ! 
For while it pouts, her fingers wres- 
tle. 
Twinkling the audacious leaves be- 
tween, 
Till round they turn and down they 
nestle ; 
Is not the dear mark still to be 
seen ? 



Where I find her not, beauties vanish ; 
Whither I follow her, beauties flee : 
Is there no method to tell her in 
Spanish 
June's twice June since she breathed 
it with me ? 
Come, bud, show me the least of her 
traces. 
Treasure my lady's lightest footfall ! 
— Ah, you may flout and turn up your 
faces — 
Roses, you are not so fair after all ! 



11. 
SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS. 



Plagl^e take all your pedants, say I ! 
He who wrote what I hold in my 
hand, 
Centuries back was so good as to die. 
Leaving this rubbish to cumber the 
land ; 
This, that was a book in its time. 
Printed ou paper and bound in 
leather, 



Last month in the white of a matin- 
prime 
Just when the birds sang all to- 
gether. 



Into the garden I brought it to read, 

And under the arbute and laurus- 
tine 
Read it, so help me grace in my need, 

From title-page to closing line. 
Chapter on chapter did I count, 

As a curious traveller counts Stone- 
lienge ; 
Added up the mortal amount, 

And then proceeded to my revenge. 



III. 
Yonder 's a plum-tree with a crevice 
An owl would build in, were he but 
sage ; 
For a lap of moss, like a fine pont 
levis 
In a castle of the middle age. 
Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber ; 
When he'd be private, there might 
he spend 
Hours alone in his lady's chamber : 
Into this crevice I dropped oui 
friend. 



Splash, went he, as under he ducked, 
— At the bottom, I knew, rain-drip^ 
pings stagnate ; 
Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked 
To bury him with, my bookshelf's 
magnate ; 
Then I went indoors, brought out a 
loaf, 
Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chs- 
blis; 
Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf 
Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais. 



Now, this morning, betwixt the moss 
And gum that locked our friend in 
limbo, 
A spider had spun his web across. 
And sat in the midst with arnft» 
akimbo : 
So, I took pity, for learning's sake. 

And, de prdfandis, acccntibiis Icetis, 
Cantata I quoth I, as I got a rake ; 
And up I fished his delectable trea- 
tise. 



134 



IN THREE DAYS. 



Here you have it, dry in the sun, 

With all the binding all of a blister, 
And great blue spots where the ink 
has run. 
And reddish streaks that wink and 
glister 
O'er the page so beautifully yellow : 
Oh, well have the droppings played 
their tricks ! 
Did he guess how toadstools grow, 
this fellow? 
Here's one stuck in his chapter six ! 

VII. 

How did he like it when the live 
creatures 
Tickled and toused and browsed 
liim all over. 
And worm, slug, eft, with serious 
features, 
Came in, each one, for his right of 
trover ? 
-When the water-beetle with great 
blind deaf face 
Made of her eggs the stately de- 
posit, 
And the newt borrowed just so much 
of the preface 
As tiled in the top of his black 
wife's closet ? 

VIII. 

All that life and fun and romping. 
All that frisking and twisting and 
coupling, 
While slowly our poor friend's leaves 
were swamping. 
And clasps were cracking, and cov- 
ers suppling ! 
As if you had carried sour John 
Knox 
To the ]>layhouse at Paris, Vienna, 
or Munich, 
Fastened him into a front-row box. 
And danced off the ballet with 
trousers and tunic. 



Come, old martyr ! What, torment 
enough is it ? 
Back to ray room shall you take 
your sweet self. 
Good-by, mother-beetle ; husband- 
eft, svfflcit ! 
See the snug niche I have made on 
my shelf ! 



A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall 
cover you, 
Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to 
be gay, 
And with E. on each side, and F. right 
over you. 
Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment- 
day ! 



IN THREE DAYS. 



So, I shall see her in three days 
And just one night, but nights are 

short. 
Then two long hours, and that is 

morn. 
See how I come, unchanged, unworn ! 
Feel, where my life broke off from 

thine, 
How fresh the splinters keep and 

fine, — 
Only a touch, and we combine I 



Too long, this time of year, the days ! 
But nights, at least the nights are 

short. 
As night shows where her one moon 

is, 
A hand's-breadth of pure light and 

bliss, 
So life's night gives my lady birth 
And my eyes hold her ! What is 

worth 
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth ? 



O loaded curls ! release your store 
Of warmth and scent, as once liefore 
The tingling hair did, lights and darks 
Outbreaking into fairy sparks. 
When under curl and curl 1 pried 
After the warmth and scent inside, 
Through lights and darks how mani= 

fold — 
The dark inspired, the light con- 
trolled, 
As early Art embrowns the gold ! 



What great fear, should one say, 

" Three days, 
That change the world, might change 

as well 



RUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI. 



IS.'i 



Your fortune ; and if joy delays, 
Be happy tliat no worse befell ! " 
Wliat sniiill fear, if anotlu^r says, 
"Three days and one sliortnight be- 
side 
May throw no shadow on your ways ; 
But years must teem with chauge 

untried. 
With chanee not easily defied. 
With an end somewhere undescried." 
No fear ! — or, if a fear be born 
Tills minute, fear dies out in scorn. 
Fear ? I shall see her in three days 
And one night, now the nights ai'e 

short, 
Theu just two hours, and that is 
morn ! 



THE LOST MISTRESS. 



All's over, then : does truth sound 
bitter 
As one at first believes ? 
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night 
twitter 
About your cottage eaves ! 



And the leaf-buds on the vine are 
woolly, 

I noticed that to-day ; 
One day more bursts tliem open fully : 

You know the red turns gray. 



To-morrow we meet the same then, 
dearest ? 
May I take your hand in mine ? 
Mere friends are we, — well, friends 
the merest 
Keep much that I resign. 



Bach glance of the eye so bright and 
black, 
Though I keep with heart's en- 
deavor, — 
Your voice, when you wish the snow- 
drops back, 
Though it stay in my soul forever, — 



V. 

Yet I will but say what mere friends 
say. 
Or only a thought stronger ; 
I will hold your hand but as long as 
all may, 
Or so very little longer ! 



ONE WAY OF LOVE. 



All June I bound the rose in sheaves 
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves 
And strew them where Pauline may 

pass. 
She will not turn aside ? Alas ! 
Let them lie. Suppose they die ? 
The chance was they might take her 

eye. 



How many a month I strove to suit 
These stubborn fingers to the lute ! 
To-day I venture all I know. 
She will not hear my music ? So ! 
Break the string ; fold nnisic's wing : 
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing ! 



My whole life long I learned to love. 
This hour my utmost art I prove 
And speak my passion — heaven or 

hell? 
She will not give me heaven ? 'Tis 

well ! 
Lose who may — I still can say, 
Those who win heavec, blest are 

they ! 



RUDEL TO THE LADY OF 
TRIPOLL 



I KNOW a Mount, the gracious Sun 

perceives 
First, when he visits, last, too, when 

he leaves 
The world ; and, vainly favored, it 

repays 
The day-long glory of his steadfast 

gaze 



136 



NUMPIWLEPTOS. 



By no change of its large calm front 

of snow. 
And, underneath the Mount, a Flower 

I kiuiw. 
He cannot have perceived, that 

changes ever 
At his approach ; and, in the lost 

endeavor 
To live his life, has parted, one by 

one, 
With all a flower's true graces, for the 

grace 
Of heing but a foolish mimic sun. 
With riiy-like dorets round a disk- 
like face. 
Men nobly call by manj' a name the 

Mount 
As over many a land of theirs its 

large 
Calm front of snow like a triumphal 

targe 
Is reared, and still with old names, 

fresh names vie. 
Each to its proper praise and own ac- 
count : 
Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, 

sportively. 

II. 

O Angel of the East ! one, one gold 

look 
Across the waters to this twilight 

nook, 
— The far sad waters. Angel, to this 

nook ! 



Dear Pilgrim, art thou for the East 
indeed ? 

Go I — saying ever as thou dost pro- 
ceed. 

That I, French Rudel, choose for my 
device 

A sunflower outspread like a sacri- 
fice 

Before its idol. See 1 These inex- 
pert 

And hurried fingers could not fail to 
hurt 

The woven picture ; 'tis a woman's 
skill 

Indeed ; but nothing baffled me, so, 
ill 

Or well, the work is finished. Say, 
men feed 

On songs I sing, and therefore bask 
tlic Ikm's 

On my flower's breast as on a plat- 
form broad : 



But, as the flower's concern is not 
for these 

But solely for the sun, so men ap- 
plaud 

In vain this Rudel, he not looking 
here 

But to the East — the East ! Go, say 
this. Pilgrim dear ! 



NUMPHOLEPTOS. 

Still you stand, still you listen, still 

you smile ! 
Still melts your moonbeam through 

me, white a while. 
Softening, sweetening, till sweet and 

soft 
Increase so round this heart of mine, 

that oft 
I could believe your moonbeam-smile 

has i)ast 
The palli(i limit and, transftvrnied at 

last. 
Lies, sunlight and salvation — warnie 

the soul 
It sweetens, softens ! Would you 

jiass that goal, 
Gain love's birth at the limit's hap- 

])icr verge. 
And, where aii iridescence lurks, but 

urge 
The hesitating pallor on to prime 
Of dawn ! — true blood-streaked, sun- 

w;irnith, action-timt", 
By heart-pulse ripened to a ruddy glow 
Of gold above my clay — I scarce 

should know 
From gold's self, thus suffused ! For 

gold means love. 
What means the sad slow silver smile 

above 
My clay but pity, pardon ? — at the 

best, 
But acquiescence that I t.ake my rest. 
Contented to be clay, while in your 

heaven 
The sun reserves love for the Spirit- 
Seven 
Companioning God's throne they lamp 

before, 
— Leaves earth a mute waste only 

wandered o'er 
By that pale soft sweet disempa.s- 

sioned moon 
Which smiles me slow forgiveness J 

Such, the boon 



numpiioli:ptos. 



VM 



I bt'g? Nay, dear, submit to this — 
just this 

Supreme endeavor ! As nij' lips now 
kiss 

Your ivi't, Juy arms eonvulso your 
shroudiu}^ rolx!, 

My (^yea, acipiaiiited with tlio dust, 
dar(! prolu! 

Your eyes above; for — what, if born, 
would blind 

Mine with nidnndant bliss, as flash 
may tind 

The inert nerve, sting awake the pal- 
sied limb, 

Bid witli life's ecstasy sense over- 
brim 

And suck back death in the reaurging 

joy — 

So grant me — love, whole, sole, with- 
out alloy ! 

Vainly ! Tlio promise withers ! I 

enijiloy 
Lips, arms, eyes, pray tlie prayer 

wiiieh finds the word. 
Make tlie appeal which must be felt, 

not hear<l. 
And none the more is elianged your 

calm regard : 
Rather, its sw(U!t and soft grow harsh 

and hard — 
Forlxsarancc, then n^jjulsion, then dis- 
dain. 
Avert the rest ! I rise, see I — make, 

again 
Once mor(!, the old departure for 

some track 
Untri(!d yet through a world which 

brings inc ba(Tk 
Ev(u- thus frnitl(!S3ly to find your 

feet, 
To fix your eyes, to pray the soft and 

swecit 
Which sniilc! tlicr(! — take from his 

new pilgrimage 
Your outcast, on(!e your ininat(!, and 

assuage 
With love — not placid pardon now — 

his thirst 
For a mere drop from out the ocean 

erst 
Ift; drank at! Well, the quest shall 

b<! renewed. 
Fear nothing! Though I linger, un- 

imbtunl 
VYith any drop, my lips thus close. I 

go'! 
So did 1 leave you, I have found you 

so, 



And doubtlessly, if fat(!d to niturn. 
So shall my phiading iKjrsev<;re and 

earn 
Pardon — not love — in that same 

smile, I learn, 
And lose the meaning of, to learn 

once mor(!. 
Vainly ! 

What fairy track do I ex- 
plore ? 
What magic hall return to, like the 

gem 
Centnply-anglfMl o'er a diadem ? 
You dwell 1 th(;re, hearted ; from your 

midmost home 
Rays forth — through that fantastic 

world I roam 
Excr — from c(!ntre. to circumierence, 
Shaft ui)on c<jlorcd shaft : this crim- 
sons thene(^ 
Tliat |)nri)les out its i)recinct through 

the waste. 
Surely I had your sanction when I 

faced, 
Fared forth upon that untried yellow 

ray 
WheiuH) T rctrack my steps ? They 

end to-day 
Where they l)egan, before your feet. 

bcuieath 
Your <!y(!s, your snnlc: the blade is 

shut in sheath. 
Fire (puMiehi'd in Hint ; irradiation, 

\i\U'. 
Triumphant Ihrough the distance, 

finds its fate. 
Merged in your blank pure soul, alike 

till! source 
And tomb of that i)risniati(; glow : 

divorce 
Absolute;, all-conclusive ! Forth J 

fared. 
Treading the lambent flamelct : little 

car(!d 
If now its flickering took the topast 

tint, 
If now my dull-caked patli gave snl-. 

jihury hint 
Of subt(;rranean rage — no stay nor 

stint 
To yellow, since you sanctioned that 

I batln;, 
Bijrnish nn;, soul and body, swim and 

swatlui 
In yellow license. Here I reek suf- 
fused 
With cro(;us, saffron, orange, aa I 

used 



138 



.NUMPHOLEPTOS. 



With scarlet, purple, every dye o' the 

bow- 
Born of the storm-cloud. As before, 
you show 

Scarce recognition, no approval, some 

Mistrust, luore wonder at a man be- 
come 

Monstrous in garb, nay — flesh dis- 
guised as well, 

Through his adventure. Whatsoe'er 
befell, 

I followed, wheresoe'er it wound, that 
vein 

You authorized should leave your 
whiteness, stain 

Earth's sombre stretch beyond your 
midmost place 

Of vantage, — trode that tinct where- 
of the trace 

On garb and flesh repel you ! Yes, I 
jilead 

Your own permission — yoiir com- 
mand, indeed, 

That who would worthily retain the 
love 

Must share the knowledge shrined 
those eyes above, 

Go boldly on adventure, break 
through bounds 

O* the quintessential whiteness that 
surrounds 

Your feet, obtain experience of each 
tinge 

That bickers forth to broaden out, 
impinge 

Plainer his foot its pathway all dis- 
tinct 

From every other. Ah, the wonder, 
linked 

With fear, as exploration manifests 

What agency it was first tipped the 
crests 

Of unnamed wild-flower, soon pro- 
truding grew 

Portentous inid the sands, as when 
his hue 

Betrays him and the burrowing snake 
gleams through ; 

Till, last . . . but why parade more 
shame and pain ? 

Are not the proofs upon me? Here 
again 

I pass into your presence, I receive 

Your smile of pity, pardon, and I 
leave . . . 

No, not this last of times I leave you, 
nnite. 

Submitted to my penance, so my 
foot 



May yet again adventure, tread, from 
source 

To issue, one more ray of rays which 
course 

Each other, at your bidding, from the 
si>here 

Silver and sweet, their birthplace, 
down that drear 

Dark of tlie world,— you promise 
shall return 

Your pilgrim jewelled as with drops 
o' the urn 

The rainbow paints from, and no 
smatch at all 

Of ghastliness at edge of some cloud- 
pall 

Heaven cowers before, as earth awaits 
the fall 

O' the bolt and flash of doom. Who 
trusts your word 

Tries the adventure: and returns — 
absurd 

As frightful — in that sulphur-steeped 
disguise 

Mocking the priestly cloth-of-gold, 
sole prize 

The arch-heretic was wont to bear 
away 

Until he reached the burning. No, I 
say : 

No fresli adventure ! No more seek- 
ing love 

At end of toil, and finding, calm 
above 

My passion, the old statuesque re- 
gard. 

The sad petrific smile ! 



O you — less hard 

And hateful than mistaken and ob- 
tuse 

Unreason of a she-intelligence ! 

You very woman with the pert pre- 
tence 

To match the male achievement ! 
Like enough ! 

Ay, you were easy victors, did the 
rough 

Straightway efface itself to smooth, 
the gruff 

Grind down and grow a whisper,— 
did man's truth 

Subdue, for sake of chivalry and 
ruth, 

Its rapier edge to suit the bulrush- 
spear 

Womanly falsehood fights with ! O 
tliat ear 



THE WORST OF IT. 



139 



All fact pricks rudely, that tbrice- 

auperfine 
Feminity of sense, with right divine 
To waive all process, take result 

stain-free 
From out the very muck wherein . . . 
Ah me ! 
The true slave's querulous outbreak ! 

All the rest 
Be resignation ! Forth at your behest 
I fare. Who knows but this — the 

crimson-quest — 
May deepen to a sunrise, not decay 
To Ihat cold sad sweet smije ? — which 

I obey. 



APPEARANCES. 



And so you found that poor room 
dull. 
Dark, hardly to your taste, my 
Dear? 
Its features seemed unheautiful : 
But this I know — 'twas there, not 
here. 
You plighted troth to me, the word 
Which — ask that poor room how it 
heard ! 

II. 
And this rich room obtains your praise 

Unqualified, — so bright, so fair. 
So all wliereat perfection stays ? 

Ay, but remember — here, not there, 
The' other word was spoken ! Ask 
This rich room how you dropped the 
mask ! 



THE WORST OF IT. 



Would it were I had been false, not 
you ! 
I that am nothing, not you that are 
all : 
I, never the worse for a touch or two 
On my speckled hide ; not you, the 
jiride 
Of the day, my swan, that a first 
fleck's fall 
On her wonder of white must un- 
swau, undo ! 



I had dipped in life's struggle and, 
out again, 
Bore specks of it here, there, easy 
to see. 
When I found my swan and the cure 
was plain ; 
The dull turned bright as I caught 
your white 
On my bosom : you saved me — saved 
in vain 
If you ruined yourself, and all 
through me ! 



Yes, all through the speckled beast 
I am. 
Who taught you to stoop ; you gave 
me yourself. 
And bound your soul by the vows 
which damn : 
Since on better thought you bi'eak, 
as you ought, 
Vows — words, no angel set down, 
some elf 
Mistook, — for an oath, an epigram ! 



Yes, might I judge you, here were my 
heart. 
And a hundred its like, to treat as 
you pleased ! 
I choose to be yours, for my proper 
part. 
Yours, leave me or take, or mar or 
make ; 
If I acquiesce, why should you be 
teased 
With the conscience-prick and the 
memory-smart ? 



But what will God say? O my 
Sweet, 
Think, and be sorry you did this 
thing ! 
Though earth were unworthy to feel 
your feet. 
There's a heaven above may de- 
serve your love : 
Should you forfeit heaven for a snapt 
gold ring 
And a promise broke, were it just 
or meet ? 



140 



THE WORST OF IT. 



And I to have tempted you ! I, who 
tried 
Your soul, no doubt, till it sauk ! 
Unwise, 
I loved and was lowly, loved and 
aspired, 
Loved, grieving or glad, till I made 
you mad, 
.\ud you meant to have hated and 
despised — 
Whereas, you deceived me nor in- 
quired ! 

vn. 
She, ruined ? How ? No heaven for 
her ? 
Crowns to give, and none for the 
brow 
That looked like marble and smelt 
like myrrh ? 
Shall the "robe be worn, and the 
palm-branch borne, 
And she go graceless, she graced now 
Beyond all saints, as themselves 
' aver ? 



Hardly ! That must be understood ! 
Theearth is your place of penance, 
then ; 
And what will it prove? I desire 
your good. 
But^ plot as I may, I can find no 
way 
How a blow should fall, such as falls 
on men, 
Nor prove too much for your woman- 
hood. 

IX. 

It will come, I suspect, at the end of 
life, 
■\Vhen you walk alone, and review 
the past ; 
:Vnd I, who so long shall have done 
with strife, 
Aud journeyed my stage and earned 
my wage 
\nd retired as was right, — I am 
called at last 
When the Devil stabs you, to lend 
the knife. 

X. 

He stabs for the minute of tri\ial 
wrong, 
Vor the other hours are able to 
save, 



The happy, that lasted my whole lilc 

long" : 

For a promise broke, not for first 

words spoke, 

The true, the only, that turn my grave 

To a blaze of joy and a crash of song. 



Witness beforehand ! Off I trip 
On a safe path gay through the 
flowers you flung : 
My very name made great by your lip, 
And my heart aglow with the good 
I knqw 
Of a perfect year when we both were 
joung, 
Ancl I tasted the angels' fellowship. 



And witness, moreover . . . Ah, but 
wait ! 
I spy the loop whence an arrow 
shoots ! 
It may be for yourself, when you 
uieditate, 
That you grieve — for slain ruth, 
murdered truth : 
" Though falsehood escape in the end, 
what boots ? 
How truth would have triumphed ! " 
— you sigh too late. 



Ay, who would have trlumiihed like 
you, I say ! 
Wefl, it is lost now ; well, you must 
bear. 
Abide aud grow fit for a better day. 
You should hardly grudge, could I 
be your judge ! 
But hush ! For you, can be no de- 
spair : 
There's amends : 'tis a secret ; hope 
aud pray ! 



For I was true at least — oh, true 
enough ! 
And. Dear, truth is not as good as 
it seems ! 
Commend nie to conscience ! Idle 
stuff ! 
Much help is in mine, as I mope and 
pine. 
And skulk through day, and scowl in 
my dreams 
At my swan's obtaining the crow'? 
rebuff. 



TOO LATE. 



141 



XV. 

Men t<>ll Tue of truth now — " False ! " 
I cry : 
Of beauty — "A mask, friend ! Look 
beneath ! " 
We take our own method, the Devil 
and I, 
With pleasant and fair and wise 
and rare : 
And the best we wish to what lives, 
is — death ; 
Which even in wishing, perhaps we 
lie ! 



Far better commit a fault and have 
done — 
As you. Dear! — forever: and 
choose the pure, 
And look where the healing waters 
run. 
And strive and strain to be good 
again. 
And a place in the other world in- 
sui'e. 
All glass and gold, with God for its 
sun. 

XVII. 

Misery ! What shall I say or do ? 
I cannot advise, or, at least, per- 
suade. 
Most like, you are glad you deceived 
me — rue 
No whit of the wrong : you endured 
too long, 
Have done no evil and want no aid. 
Will live the old life out and chance 
the new. 

XVIII. 

And your sentence is written all the 
same. 
And I can do nothing, — pray, per- 
haps : 
But somehow the world pursues its 
game, — 
If I pray, if I curse, — for better or 
worse : 
And my faith is torn to a thousand 
scraps. 
And my heart feels ice while my 
words breathe flame. 



Dear, I look from my hiding-place. 
Are you still .so fair? Have you 
still the eyes ? 



Be hap]iy ! Add but the other grace, 
Be good ! Why want what the 
angels vaunt ? 
I knew you once : but in Paradise, 
If we meet, I will pass nor turn 
my face. 



TOO LATE. 



Heke was I with my arm and heart 
And brain, all yours for a word, a 
want 
Put into a look — just a look, your 
part, — 
While mine, to repay it . . . vainest 
vaunt, 
Were the woman, that's dead, alive 
to hear, 
Had her lover, that's lost, love's 
proof to show ! 
But I cannot show it ; you cannot 
speak 
From the churchyard neither, miles 
removed. 
Though I feel by a pulse within my 
cheek. 
Which stabs and stops, that th& 
woman I loved 
Needs help in her grave and finds 
none near, 
AVants warmth from the heart which 
sends it — so ! 



Did I speak once angrily, all the drear 
days 
You lived, you woman I loved so 
well. 
Who married the other? Blame or 
praise. 
Where was the use then ? Time 
Avould tell, 
And the end declare what man for you, 
W^at woman for me was the choice 
of God. 
But, Edith dead ! no doubting more ! 

I used to sit and look at my life 
As it rippled and ran till, right before, 
A great stone stopped it : oh, the 
strife 
Of waves at the stone some devil 
threw 
In inv life's midourrent, thwarting 
God ! 



142 



TOO LATE. 



But either I thought, " They may 
churu and chide 
A while, — my waves which came 
for their joy 
And found this horrible stone full- 
tide : 
Yet I see just a thread escape, 
deploy 
Through the evening-country, silent 
and safe, 
And it suffers no more till it finds 
the sea." 
Or else I would think, " Perliaps some 
night 
"When new things happen, a meteor- 
ball 
Mavslip through the skv in a line of 
light. 
And earth breathe hard, and land- 
marks fall, 
And my waves no longer champ nor 
chafe. 
Since a stone will have rolled from 
its place : let be 1 " 

IV. 

But, dead ! All's done with : wait 
who may. 
Watch and wear and wonder who 
will. 
Oh, my whole life that ends to-day ! 
Oh, niv soul's sentence, sounding 
still, 
" The woman is dead, that was none 
of his ; 
And The man, that was none of hers, 
may go ! " 
There's only the past left: worry that ! 
Wreak, like a bull, on the empty 
coat, 
Rage, its late wearer is laughing at ! 
Tear the collar to rags, having 
missed his throat ; 
Strike stupidly on — " This, this, and 
this. 
Where I would that a bosom re- 
ceived the blow I " 

v. 
l' ought to have done more : once my 
speech 
And once your answer, and there, 
the cud. 
And Edith was henceforth out of 
reach ! 
Why, men do more to deserve a 
"friend, 



Be rid of a foe, get rich, grow wise, 
Nor. folding their arms, stare fate in 
the face. 
Whv, better even have burst like a 
thief 
And borne you away to a rock for 
us two. 
In a moment's horror, bright, bloody, 
and brief. 
Then changed to myself again — "1 
slew 
Myself in that moment ; a ruflSan 
lies 
Somewliere : your slave, see, born 
in his place ! " 



What did the other do? You be 
judge ! 
Look at us, Edith ! Here are we 
both ! 
Give him his six whole years : I 
grudge 
None of the life with you, nay. I 
loathe 
Myself that I grudged his start in 
advance 
Of me who could overtake and 
pass. 
But, as if he loved vou ! No, not 
he. 
Nor any one else in the world, 'tis 
plain : 
Who ever heard that another, free 
As I, young, prosperous, sound, and 
sane. 
Poured life out, proffered it — "Half 
a glance 
Of those eyes of yours and I drop 
the glass ! " 



Handsome, were you ? 'Tis more 
than they held. 
More than they said ; I was 'ware 
and watched : 
I wavS the 'scapegrace, this rat belled 
The cat, this iool got his whiskers 
scratched : 
The others? No head that was 
turned, no heart 
Broken, my lady, assure yourself ! 
Each soon made liis mind lip ; so and 
so 
Married a dancer, such and such 
Stole his friend's wife, stagnated slow. 
Or maundered, unable to do as 
much, 



TOO LATE. 



143 



A.nd imittered of peace where he had 
no part : 
While, hid in the closet, laid on the 
shelf,— 



On the whole, you were let alone, I 
think ! 
So, yoii looked to the other, who 
acquiesced ; 
My rival, the proud man, — prize 
your pink 
Of jtoets ! A poet he was 1 I've 
ijucsscd : 
He rhymed you his rubbish nobody 
read, 
Loved you and doved you — did not 
I laugh ! 
There was a prize ! But we both 
were tried. 
O heart of mine, marked broad 
with her mark, 
T(kd, found wanting, set aside. 
Scorned 1 See, I bleed these tears 
in the dark 
Till comfort come and the last be 
bled : 
He ? He is tagging your epitaph. 



If it would only come over again ! 
— Time to be patient with me, and 
probe 
This heart till you punctured the 
proper vein , 
Just to learn what blood is : twitch 
the rol)e 
From that blank laj'-figure your fancy 
draped. 
Prick the leathern heart till the — 
verses spirt ! 
And late it was easy ; late, you 
walked 
Where a friend might meet you ; 
Edith's name 
Arose to one's lip if one laughed or 
talked ; 
If I heard good news, you heard the 
same ; 
When I woke, I knew that your breath 
escaped ; 
I could bide my time, keep alive, 
alert. 

X. 

A.nd alive I shall keep and long, you 
will see 1 
I knew a man, was kicked like a 
dog 



From gutter to cesspool ; what cared 
he 
So long as ho picked from the filth 
his i)rog ? 
He saw youth, beauty, and genius die. 
And jollily lived to his hundredth 
year. 
But I will live otherwise : none of 
such life ! 
At once I begin as I mean to end. 
Go on with the world, get gold in ita 
strife. 
Give your spouse the slip, and be- 
tray j'our friend ! 
There are two who decline, a woman 
and I, 
And enjoy our death in the dark- 
ness here. 



I liked that way you had with your 
curls 
Wound to a ball in a net behind : 
Your cheek was chaste as a Quaker- 
girl's, 
And your mouth — there was never, 
to my mind. 
Such a funny mouth, for it would not 
shut ; 
And the dented chin too — what a 
chin I 
There were certain ways when you 
spoke, some words 
That you know you never could pro- 
nounce : 
You were thin, however ; like a bird's 
Your hand seemed — some would 
say, the pounce 
Of a scaiy-footed hawk — all but ! 
The world was right when it called 
you thin. 



But I turn my back on the world : I 
take 
Your hand, and kneel, and lay to 
my lips. 
Bid me live, Edith ! Let me slake 
Thirst at your presence ! Fear no 
slips ! 
'Tis your slave shall pay, while his 
soul endures. 
Full due, love's whole debt, sxim- 
muni jus. 
My queen shall have high observance, 
planned 
Courtship made perfect, no least 
line 



144 



BIFURCATION. 



Crossed without warrant. There you 
stand, 
Warm too, and white too : would 
this wine 
Had washed all over that body of 
yours, 
Ere I drank it, and you down with 
it, thus ! 



BIFURCATION. 

We were two lovers ; let me lie by 

her, 
My tomb beside her tomb. On hers 

inscribe — 
" I loved him ; but my reason bade 

prefer 
Duty to love, reject the tempter's 

bribe 
Of rose and lily when each path di- 
verged. 
And either I must pace to life's far 

end 
As love should lead me, or, as duty 

urged, 
Plod the worn causeway arm in arm 

with friend. 
So, truth turned falsehood : ' How I 

loathe a flower, 
How prize the pavement ! ' still ca- 
ressed his ear — 
The deafish friend's — through life's 

day, hour by hour, 
As he laughed (coughing) 'Ay, it 

would appear ! ' 
But deep within my heart of hearts 

there hid 
Ever the confidence, amends for all. 
That heaven repairs what wrong 

earth's journey did, 
When love from life-long exile comes 

at call. 
Duty and love, one broadway, were 

the best — 
Who doubts ? But one or other was 

to choose. 
I chose the darkling half, and wait 

the rest 
In that new world where light and 

darkness fuse." 

Inscribe on mine — "I loved her: 

love's track lay 
O'er sand and pebble, as all travellers 

know. 



Duty led through a smiliiag country, 

gay 
With greensward where the rose and 

lily blow. 
'Our roads are diverse: farewell, 

love ! ' said she : 
' 'Tis duty I abide by : homely sward 
And not the rock-rough picturesque 

for me ! 
Above, where both roads join, I wait 

reward. 
Be you as constant to the path where- 
on 
I leave you planted ! ' But man needs 

must move. 
Keep moving — whither, when the 

star is gone 
Whereby he steps secure nor straj's 

from love ? 
No stone but I was tripped by, stum- 
bling-block 
But brought me to confusion. Where 

I fell, 
There I lay flat, if moss disguised the 

rock : 
Thence, if flint pierced, I rose and 

cried, ' All's well ! 
Duty be mine to tread in that high 

sphere 
Where love from duty ne'er disparts, 

I trust, 
And two halves make that whole, 

whereof — since here 
One must suftice a man — why, this 

one must ! ' " 

Inscribe each tomb thus : then, some 

sage acquaint 
The simple — which holds sinner, 

which holds saint ! 



A LIKENESS. 

Some people hang portraits up 
In a room where they dine or sup : 
And the wife clinks tea-things under, 
And her cousin, he stirs his cup. 
Asks, "Who was the lady, I won- 
der?"— 
" 'Tis a daub John bought at a sale," 
Quoth the wife, — looks black as 

thunder. 
" What a shade beneath her nose ! 
Snuff-taking, I suppose," — 
AiUls the cousin, while John's corns 
ail. 



MAY AND DEATH. 



145 



Or else, tluTc's no wiiv in the case, 
But the jKntrait's queen of the phice, 
Alone mid tlie otliei" spoils 
Of youth, — masks, gloves, and foils. 
And pipe-sticks, i-ose, cherry-tree, 

jasmine. 
And the long whip, the tandem- 

laslier, 
And the cast from a fist (" not, alas ! 

mine, 
But my master's, the Tipton Slasher ") 
And the cards where j^istol-balls mark 

ace, 
And a satin shoe used for a cigar- 
case. 
And the chamois-horns (" shot in the 

Chablais ") 
And prints — Rarey drumming on 

Cruiser, 
And Sayers, our champion, the 

bruiser, 
And the little edition of Rabelais : 
Where a friend, with both hands in 

his pockets 
May saunter up close to examine it, 
And remark a good deal of Jane 

Lamb in it, 
"But the ej-es are half out of their 

sockets ; 
That hair's not so bad, where the 

gloss is. 
But they've made the girl's nose a 

proboscis : 
Jane Lamb, that we danced with at 

Vichy ! 
What, is not she Jane? Then, who 

is she?" 

All that I own is a print. 
An etching, a mezzotint ; 
'Tis a study, a fancy, a fiction, 
Yet a fact (take my conviction). 
Because it has more than a hint 
Of a certain face, I never 
Saw elsewhere touch or trace of 
In women I've seen the face of : 
Just an etching, and, so far, clever. 

I keep my prints an imbroglio, 
Fifty in our portlolio. 
When somcbodj' tries my claret, 
We turn round chairs to the fire, 
Chirp over days in a garret. 
Chuckle o'er increase of salary, 
Taste the good fruits of our leisure, 
Talk about ])encil and lyre. 
And the National Portrait Gallery : 
Tli£n I exhibit my treasure. 



After we've turned over twenty, 
And the debt of wonder my' crony 

owes 
Is jiaid to my Marc Antonios, 
He stops me — " Fcstina lente ! 
What's that sweet thing there, the 

etching? " 
How my waistcoat strings want 

stretching. 
How my cheeks grow red as toma- 

toes, 
How my heart leaps ! But hearts, 

after leaps, ache. 

"By t^ie by, you must take, for a 

keepsake. 
That other, you praised, of Volpato's." 
The fool ! would he try a fiight far- 
ther and say — 
He never saw, never before to-day, 
What was able to take his breath 

away, 
A face to lose youth for, to occupy 

age 
With the dream of, meet death with, — 

whj% I'll not engage 
But that, half in a rapture and half in 

a rage, 
I should toss him the thing's self — 

" 'Tis only a duplicate, 
A thing of no value ! Take it, I 

supplicate I " 



MAY AND DEATH. 



I WISH that when you died last May, 
Charles, there had died along with 
you 
Three parts of spring's delightful 
things ; 
Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too 



A foolish thought, and worse, perhajw! 
There must be many a pair of 
friends 
Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm 
Moon-births and the long evening- 
ends. 

iir. 
So, for their sake, be May still May ! 
Let their new time, as mine of old, 
Do all it did for me : I bid 

Sweet sights and sounds throng 
manifold. 



146 



A FORGIVENESS. 



Only, one little sight, one plant, 
Woods have in May, that starts up 
green 
Save a sole streak which, so to speak, 
Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves be- 
tween, — 



That, they might si^are ; a certain 
wood 
Might miss the plant ; their loss 
were small : 
But I, — whene'er the leaf grows 
there, 
Its drop comes from my heart, 
that's all. 



A FORGIVENESS. 

I AM indeed the personage you know. 
As for my wife, — what happened 

long ago — 
You have a right to question me, as I 
Am bound to answer. 

(" Son, a fit reply ! " 
The monk half spoke, half ground 

through his clinched teeth, 
At the confession-grate I knelt 

beneath.) 

Thus then all happened, Father! 
Power and i^lace 

I had as still I have. I ran life's 
race, 

With the whole world to see, as only 
strains 

His strength some athlete whose pro- 
digious gains 

Of good appal him : happy to ex- 
cess, — 

Work freely done should balance 
happiness 

Fully enjoyed ; and, since beneath 
my roof 

JSousedshe who made home heaven, 
in heaven's behoof 

I went forth every day, and all day 
long 

Worked for the world. Look, how 
the laborer's song 

Cheers him ! Thus sang my soul, 
at each sharp throe 

Of laboring flesh and blood — "She 
loves me so 1 " 



One day, perhaps such song so knit 

the nerve 
That work grew play and vanished. 

" I deserve 
Haply my heaven an hour before the 

time ! " 
I laughed, as silverly the clockhouse" 

chime 
Surprised me passing through the pos- 
tern gate 
— Not the main entry where the 

menials wait 
And wonder why the world's affairs 

allow 
The master sudden leisure. That 

was how 
I took the private garden-way for 

once. 

Forth from the alcove, I saw start, 

ensconce 
Himself behind the porjDhyry vase, a 

man. 

My fancies in the natural order ran : 

" A spy, — perhaps a foe in ambus- 
cade, — 

A thief, — more like, a sweetheart of 
some maid 

Who pitched on the alcove for tryst 
perhaps." 

" Stand there ! " I bid. 

Whereat my man but wraps 
His face the closelier with ui^lifted 

arm 
Whereon the cloak lies, strikes in 

blind alarm 
This and that pedestal as, — stretch 

and stoop, — 
Now in, now out of sight, he thrids 

the group 
Of statues, marble god and goddess 

ranged 
Each side the pathway, till the gate's 

exchanged 
For safety : one step thence, the 

street, you know ! 

Thus far I followed with my gaze 

Then, slow. 
Near on admiringly, I breathed again, 
And — back to that last fancy of the 

train — 
" A danger risked for hope of just a 

word 
With — which of all my nest may be 

the bird 



A FORGIVENESS. 



147 



This poacher coverts for herplninase, 

pray ? 
Carmen ? Juana ? Carmen seems too 

gay 

For such adventure, while Juana's 

grave 
— Would scorn the foUj'. I applaud 

the knave ! 
He had the eye, could single fi'om 

my brood 
His proper fledgeling ! " 

As I turned, there stood 
In face of me, my wife stone-still 

stone-white. 
Whether one bound had brought her, 

— at tirst sight 

Of what she judged the encounter, 
sure to be 

Next moment, of the venturous man 
and me, — 

Brought her to clutch and keep me 
from my prey : 

Whether impelled because her death 
no day 

Could come so absolutely opportune 

As now at joy's height, like a year in 
June 

Stayed at the fall of its first ripened 
rose ; 

Or whether hungi-y for my hate — 
who knows? — 

Eager to end an irksome lie, and taste 

Our tingling true relation, hate em- 
braced 

Bj- hate one naked moment : — any- 
how 

There stone-still stone-white stood 
my wife, but now 

The woman who made heaven within 
my house. 

Ay, she who faced me was my very 
spouse 

As well as love — you are to recollect ! 

•' Stay ! " she said. " Keep at least 

one soul unspecked 
With crime, that's spotless hitherto 

— your own ! 

Kill me who court the blessing, who 

alone 
Was, am, and shall be guiltv, first to 

last! 
The man lay helpless in the toils I 

rast 
About him, helpless as the statue 

there 
Against that strangling bell-flower's 

bondage : tear 



Away and tread to dust the para- 
site. 
But do the passive marble no despite ! 
I love him as I hate you. Kill me ! 

Strike 
At one blow both infinitudes alike 
Out of existence — hate and love ! 

Whence love ? 
That's safe inside my heart, nor will 

remove 
For any searching of your steel, I 

think. 
Whence hate ? The secret lay on lip, 

at brink 
Of speech, in one fierce tremble to 

escape. 
At every form wherein your love took 

shape, 
At each new provocation of your l*iss. 
Kill me ! " 

We went in. 

Next daj'' after this' 
I felt as if the speech might come. 

spoke — 
Easily, after all. 

" The lifted cloak 

Was screen sufficient : I concern my- 
self 

Hardly with laying hands on who for 
pelf — 

Whate'er the ignoble kind — may 
prowl and brave 

CulSng and kicking proper to a knave 

Detected by my household's vigilance. 

Enough of such ! As for my love-ro- 
mance — 

I, like our good Hidalgo, rub my 
eyes 

And wake and wonder how the film 
could rise 

Which changed for me a barber's 
basin straight 

Into — Mambrino's helm ? I hesitate 

Nowise to say — God's sacramental 
cup ! 

Why should I blame the brass which, 
burnished up, 

Will blaze, to all but me, as good as 
gold ? 

To me — a warning I was overbold 

In judging metals. The Hidalgo 
waked 

Only to die, if I remember, —staked 

His life upon the basin's worth, and 
lost : 

While I confess torpidity at most 



148 



A FOEG/VENESS. 



In here and there a limb ; but, lame 
and halt, 

Still should I work on, still repair my 
fault 

Ere I took rest in death, — no fear at 
all! 

Now, work — no word before the cur- 
tain fall ! " 

The " curtain " ? That of death on 

life, I meant : 
My "word" permissible in death's 

event. 
Would be — truth, soul to soul ; for, 

otherwise. 
Day by day, three years long, there 

had to rise 
And, night by night, to fall upon our 

stage — 
Ours, doomed to public play by heri- 
tage — 
Another curtain, when the world, 

perforce 
Our critical assembly, in due course 
Came and went, witnessing, gave 

praise or blame 
To art-mimetic. It had spoiled the 

game 
If, suffered to set foot behind our 

scene, 
he world had witnessed how stage- 
king and queen. 
Gallant and lady, but a minute since 
Enarming each the other, would 

evince 
5?'f, sign of recognition as they took 
If is way and her way to whatever nook 
Waited them in the darkness either 

side 
Of that bright stage where lately 

groom and bride 
Had tired the audience to a frenzy-fit 
Of sympathetic rapture — every whit 
Earned as the curtain fell on her and 

me, 
— Actors. Three whole years, noth- 
ing was to see 
But calm and concord : where a 

speech was due 
There came the speech ; when smiles 

were wanted too 
Smiles were as ready. In a place like 

mine, 
Where foreign and domestic cares 

combine. 
There's audience every day and all 

day long ; 
But finally the last of the whole 

throng 



Who linger lets one see his back. For 

her — 
Why, liberty and liking : I aver, 
Liking and liberty ! For me — I 

breathed. 
Let my face rest from every wrinkle 

wreathed 
Smile-like about the mouth, unlearned 

my task 
Of personation till next day bade 

mask, 
And quietly betook me from that 

world 
To the real world, not pageant : there 

unfurled 
In work, its wings, my soul, the fretted 

power. 
Three years I worked, each minute of 

each hour 
Not claimed by acting : — work I may 

dispense 
With talk about, since work in evi- 
dence. 
Perhaps in history ; who knows or 

cares ? 

After three years, this way, all una- 
wares, 

Out acting ended. She and I, at close 

Of a loud night-feast, led, between two 
rows 

Of bending male and female loyalty, 

Our lord "the king down staircase, 
while, held high 

At arm's length did the twisted tapers' 
flare 

Herald his passage from our palace 
where 

Such visiting left glory evermore. 

Again the ascent in public, till at door 

As we two stood bj- the saloon — now 
blank 

And disencumbered of its guests — 
there sa,nk 

A whisper in my ear, so low and yet 

So unmistakable ! 

" I half forget 

The chamber you repair to, and I want 

Occasion for one short word — if you 
grant 

That grace — within a certain room 
you called 

Our ' :stiid!/,' for you wrote there while 
I scrawled' 

Some paper full of faces for my sport. 

That room I can remember. Just one 
short 

Word with you there, for the remem- 
brance' sake ! " 



A FORGIVENESS. 



U9 



" Follow me thither I " I replied. 

We hreak 
The gloom a little, as with guiding 

lamp 
I load the way, leave warmth and 

cheer, hy damp, 
Blind, disused, serpentining ways afar 
From where the habitable chambers 

are, — 
Ascend, descend stairs tunnelled 

through the stone, — 
Always in silence, — till I reach the 

lone 
Chamber sepulchred for my very own 
Out of the palace-quarry. When a 

boy. 
Here was my fortress, stronghold from 

annoy, 
Proof-positive of ownership ; in youth 
I garnered up my gleanings here — 

uncouth 
But precious relics of vain hopes, vain 

fears ; 
Finally, this became in after-years 
My closet of intrenchment to with- 
stand 
Invasion of the foe on every hand — 
The multifarious herd in bower and 

hall. 
State-room, — rooms whatsoe'er the 

style, which call 
On masters to be mindful that, before 
Men, they must look like men and 

something more. 
Here, — when our lord the king's be- 

stowment ceased 
To deck me on the day that, golden- 

tleeced, 
I touched ambition's height, — 'twas 

here, released 
From glory (always symbolled by a 

chain !) 
No sooner was I privileged to gain 
My secret domicile than glad I flung 
That last toy on the table — gazed 

where hung 
On hook my father's gift, the arque- 

buss — 
And asked myself " Shall I envisage 

thus 
The new prize and the old prize, 

when I reach 
Another year's experience? — own 

that each 
Equalled advantage — sportsman's — 

statesman's tool ? 
That brought me down an eagle, this 

— a fool 1 " 



Into which room on entry, I set down 
The lamp, and turning saw whose 

rustled gown 
Had told me my wife followed, pace 

for i^ace. 
Each of us looked the other in the 

face. 
She spoke. " Since I could die 

now" . . . 

(To explain 
Why that first struck me, know — 

not once again 
Since the adventure at the porphyry's 

edge 
Three years before, which sundered 

like a wedge 
Her soul from mine, — though daily, 

smile to smile, 
We stood before the public, — all the 

while 
Not once had I distinguished, in that 

face 
I paid observance to, the faintest 

trace 
Of feature more than requisite for 

eyes 
To do their duty by and recognize : 
So did I force mine to obey my will 
And pry no farther. There exists 

such skill, — 
Those know who need it. What 

physician shrinks 
From needful contact with a corpse ? 

He drinks 
No plague so long as thirst for knowl- 
edge, — not 
An idler impulse, — prompts inquiry. 

What, 
And will you disbelieve in power to 

bid 
Our spirit back to bounds, as though 

we chid 
A child from scrutiny that's just and 

right 
In manhood ? Sense, not soul, ac;- 

complished sight. 
Reported daily she it was — not how 
Nor why a change had come to cheek 

and brow.) 

" Since I could die now of the truth 

concealed, 
Yet dare not, must not die, — so seems 

revealed 
The Virgin's mind to me, — for death 

means peace, 
Wherein no lawful part have I, whose 

lease 



150 



A FORGIVENESS. 



Of life and punishment the truth 

avowed 
May haply lengthen, — let me push 

the shroud 
Away, that steals to muffle ere is just 
My penance-fire in snow ! I dare — I 

must 
Live, by avowal of the truth — this 

truth — 
I loved you ! Thanks for the fresh 

serpent's tooth 
That, by a prompt new pang more 

exquisite 
Than all preceding torture, proves 

me right ! 
I loved you yet I lost you ! May I 

go 
Burn to the ashes, now my shame you 

know ?" 

I think there never was such — how 

exi^ress ? — 
Horror coquetting with voluptuous- 
ness. 
As in those arms of Eastern work- 
manship — 

Yataghan, kandjar, things that rend 
and riji. 

Gash rough, slash smooth, help hate 
so many ways. 

Yet ever keep a beauty that betrays 

Love still at work with tlie artificer 

Throughout his quaint devising. Why 
prefer. 

Except for love's sake, that a blade 
should writhe 

And bicker like a flame ? — now play 
the scj'the 

As if some broad neck tempted, — 
now contract 

And needle off into a fineness lacked 

For just that puncture which the heart 
demands ? 

Then, such adornment ! "Wherefore 
need our hands 

Enclose not ivory alone, nor gold 

Roughened for use, but jewels ? Nay, 
behold ! ^ 

Fancy my favorite — which I seem to 
grasp 

"While I describe the luxury. No asp 

Is diapered more delicate round 
throat 

Than this below the handle ! These 
denote 

— These mazy lines meandering, to 
end 

Only in fiesh they open — what in- 
tend 



They else but water-purlings — pale 

contrast 
"With the life-crimson where they 

blend at last ? 
And mark the handle's dim pellucid 

green. 
Carved, the hard jadestone, as you 

pinch a bean. 
Into a sort of parrot-bird ! He pecks 
A grape-bunch ; his two eyes are 

ruby-specks 
Pure from the mine : seen this way, 

— glassy blank. 
But turn them, — lo the inmost fire, 

that shrank 
From sparkling, sends a red dart right 

to aim ! 
"Why did I choose such toys ? Per- 
haps the game 
Of peaceful meu is warlike, just as 

men 
"War-wearied get amusement from that 

pen 
And paper we grow sick of — statesfolk 

tired 
Of merely (when such measures are 

required) 
Dealing out doom to people by three 

words, 
A signature and seal : we play with 

swords 
Suggestive of quick process. That is 

how 
I came to like the toys described you 

now, 
Store of which glittered on the walls 

and strewed 
The table, even, while my wife pur- 
sued 
Her purpose to its ending. " Now you 

know 
This shame, my three years' torture, 

let me go, — 
Burn to the very ashes ! You — I 

lost, 
Yet you — I loved ! " 

The thing I pity most 
In men is — action prompted by sur- 
prise 
Of anger : men ? nay, bulls — whose 

onset lies 
At instance of the firework and the 

goad ! 
Once the foe prostrate, — trampling 

once bestowed, — 
Prompt follows placability, regret. 
Atonement. Trust me, blood-warmth 
never yet 



A FORGIVENESS. 



151 



Betokened strong will ! As no leap 

of pulse 
Pricked me, that first time, so did 

none convulse 
My veins at this occasion for resolve. 
Had thai devolved which did not then 

devolve 
Upon me, I had done — what now to 

do 
Was quietly apparent. 

" Tell me who 
The man was, crouching by the por- 
phyry vase ! " 

" No, never ! All was folly in his 
case, 

AH guilt in mine. I tempted, he com- 
plied." 

" And yet you loved me ? " 

" Loved you. Double-dyed 
In folly and in guilt, I thought you 

gave 
Your heart and soul away from me to 

slave 
At statecraft. Since my vight in you 

seemed lost, 
I stung myself to teach you, to your 

cost. 
What you rejected could be prized 

beyond 
Life, heaven, by the first fool I threw 

a fond 
Look on, a fatal word to." 

"And you still 
Love me ? Do I conjecture well, or 
ill?" 

"Conjecture — well, or ill I I had 

three years 
To spend in learning you." 

" We both are peers 
In knowledge, therefore : since three 

years are spent 
Ere tlius much of yourself I learn — 

who went 
Back to the house, that day, and 

brought my mind 
To bear u)ion your action : uncom- 

l)ined 
Motive from motive, till the dross, 

deprived 
Of every jnirer particle, survived 
At last in native .s'nn])le hideousness, 
Utter contemptibility, nor less 



Nor more. Contemptibility — exempt 

How could I, from its proper due — 
contempt ? 

I have too much despised you to di- 
vert 

My life from its set course by help or 
hurt 

Of your all-despicable life — perturb 

The calm I work in, by — men's 
mouths to curb. 

Which at such news were clamorous 
enough — 

Men's eyes to shut before my broid- 
ered stuff 

With the huge hole there, my em- 
blazoned wall 

Blank where a scutcheon hung, — by, 
worse than all, 

Each day's procession, my paraded life 

Robbed and impoverished through the 
wanting wife 

— Now that niy life (which means — 
my work) was grown 

Riches indeed ! Once, just this worth 
alone 

Seemed work to have, that profit 
gained thereby 

Of good and praise would — how re- 
wardingly ! — 

Fall at your feet, — a crown I hoped 
to cast 

Before your love, my love should 
crown at last. 

No love remaining to cast crown 
before. 

My love stopped work now : but con- 
tempt the more 

Impelled me task as ever head and 
hand. 

Because the very fiends weave rojies 
of sand 

Rather than taste pure hell in idle- 
ness. 

Therefore I kept my memory down 
by stress 

Of daily work I had no mind to stay 

For the world's wonder at the wife 
away. 

Oh, it was easy all of it, believe. 

For I despised you ! But your words 
retrieve 

Importantly the past. No hate as- 
sumed 

The mask of love at any time ! There 
gloomed 

A moment when love took hate's 
semblance, urged 

By causes you declare ; but love's 
self jiurged 



152 



CEXCFAJA. 



A. way a fancied wrong I did both lores 

— Yours and my own : by no hate's 
help, it proves, 

Purgation was attempted. Then, vou 
rise 

Iliilh by how many a grade! I did 
despise — 

I do but bate you. Let hate's pun- 
ishment 

Replace contempt's! First step to 
which ascent — 

Write down your own words I re- 
utter yoii ! 

/ loved my husbitnd and I hated — , 
tcho I 

He teas, I took ttp as mtj Jirst chance, ! 
mere ' I 

^fud-baU to ftin'i and make love foul 
icith ! ' Here 

Lies paper! " 

""Would my blood for ink suffice! " : 

" It may: this minion from a land of 

spice. 
Silk, feather — every bird of jewelled I 

breast — I 

This poniard's beauty, ne'er so 

lightly [>resr 
Above your heart there.'' . , . 



Her cheek was ere it wore day's f»aint^ 

disguise. 
And what a hollow darkened 'neath 

her eyes, 
Now that I used my own. She sleeps 

as erst 
Beloved, in this your church: ay, 

3'ours ! 

Immersed 

In thought so deeply, Father? Sad, 
perhaps? 

For whose sake, hers or mine or his 
who wraps 

— Still plain I seem to see! — about 
his head 

The idle cloak, —about his heart (in- 
stead 

Of cuirass) some fond hope he may 
elude 

My vengeance in the cloister's soli- 
tude? 

Hardly, I think! As little helped 
his brow 

The cloak then, Father — as your 
grate helps now! 



" Thus? " 

" It flows. I see. 
Dip there the point and write! " 



CEXCIAJA. 



2say. I remember." 



'Dictate to me! 



And she wrote the words. 
I read them. Then — " Since love, in 

you. affords 
License for hate, in me, to quench (I 

say) 
Contempt — why. hate itself hivs 

passed away 
In vengeance — foreign to contempt. 

Depart 
Peacefully to that death which East- 
ern art 
Imbued this weapon with, if tales be 

true! 
Love will succeed to hate. I pardon 

you — 
Dead in our chamber! " 

True as truth the tale. 
She died ere morning; then, I saw 
how pale j 



Ogni cencio ruol entrnre in bucalo.—Itn'i- 
ian Proverb. 

Mav I print, Shelley, how it came to 

pass 
That when your Beatrice seemed — 

by lapse 
Of many a long month since her sen- 
tence fell — 
Assured of pardon for the parricide, — 
By intercession of stanch friends, or, 

say. 
By certain pricks of conscience in tlie 

Pope, 
Conniver at Francesco Cenci's guilt,— 
Suddenly all things changed, and 

Clement grew 
"Stern," as you state, "nor to be 

moved nor bent. 
But said these three words coldly, '5Ap 

must die ; ' 
Subjoining 'Pardon ? Paolo Santa 

Croce 
yfiirdered his mother also pesteret'e. 
And he is ftd: she shall nut Jtte, ai 

least .' ' " 



CENCIAJA. 



153 



- So, to tlie letter, sentence was ful- 
filled ? 
Sliclley, may I condense verbosity 
Tli;it iies before me, into some few 

words 
Of English, and illustrate your superb 
Achim'ement by a rescued anecdote. 
No great tilings, only new and true 

beside ? 
As it some mere familiar of a house 
Should venture to accost the group 

at gaze 
Before its Titian, famed the wide 

world through. 
And su])plement such pictured mas- 
terpiece 
By wliisper " Searching in the ar- 
chives here, 
I found the reason of the Lady's fate, 
And how by accident it came to pass 
She wears the halo and displays the 

palm : 
Who, haply, else had never suffered 

— no, 

Nor graced our gallery, by conse- 
quence." 
Who loved the work would like the 

little news : 
Wlio lauds your poem lends an ear to 

me 
Relating how the penalty was paid 
By one Marchese dell' Oriolo, called 
Onofrio Santa Croce otherwise, 
For liis complicity in matricide 
With Paolo his own brother, — he 

whose crime 
And flight induced " those three words 

— She must die." 

Thus I unroll you then the manu- 
script. 

■'God's justice" — (of the multi- 
plicity 
Of such communications extant still, 
i;('(U)rdiiig, each, injustice done by 

God 
III p(!rson of his Vicar-upon-earth, 
Scarce one but leads off to the self- 
same tune) — 
' God's justice, tardy though it prove 

pen^hance, 
Ilcsts ncn-er on the track until it reach 
Delinquency. In proof I cite the 

case 
Of Paolo Santa Croce." 

Many times 
The youngster, — having been impor- 
tunate 



That Marchesine Costanza, who re- 
mained 
His widowed mother, should supplant 

the heir 
Her elder son, and substitute himself 
In sole possession of her faculty, — 
And meeting just as often with re- 
buff, — 
Blinded by so exorbitant a lust 
Of gold, the youngster straightway 

tasked his wits. 
Casting about to kill the lady — thus 

He first, to cover liis iniquity, 
Writes to Onofrio Santa Croce, then 
Authoritative lord, acquainting him 
Their mother was contamination — 

wrought 
Like hell-fire in the beauty of their 

House 
By dissoluteness and abandonment 
Of soul and body to impur(; delight. 
Moreover, since she suffered from 

disease, 
Those symptoms which her death 

made manifest 
Hydroptic, he affirmed were fruits of 

sin 
About to bring confusion and dis>- 

grace 
Upon the ancient lineage and high 

fame 
O' the family, when iiublished. Duty- 
bound, 
He asked his brother — what a son 

should do ? 

Which when Marchese dell' Oriolo 

heard 
By letter, being absent at his land 
Oriolo, he made answer, this, no more: 
"It must behoove a son, — things 

haply so, — 
To act as honor prompts a cavalier 
And son, perform his duty to all 

three. 
Mother and brothers" —here advice 

broke off. 

By which advice informed and for- 
tified 

As he professed himself — as bound 
by birth 

To hear God's voice in primogeni- 
ture — 

Paolo, who kept his mother company 

In her domain Subiaco, straightway 
dared 

His whole enormity of enter^jriee 



154 



CENCIAJA. 



Aud, falling on her, stabbed the lady 
dead ; 

Whose death demonstrated her inno- 
cence, 

And hapiiened, — by the way, — since 
Jesus Christ 

Died to save man, just sixteen hun- 
dred years. 

Costanza was of aspect beautiful 

Exceedingly, and seemed, although 
in age 

Sixty about, to far surpass her peers 

The coetaneous dames, in youth and 
grace. 

Done the misdeed, its author takes 

to flight, 
Foiling thereby the justice of the 

world : 
Not Gods however, — God, be sure, 

knows well 
The way to clutch a culprit. Witless 

here ! 
The present sinner, when he least ex- 
pects. 
Snug-cornered somewhere i' the Basi- 

licate. 
Stumbles upon his death by vio- 
lence. 
A man of blood assaults the man of 

blood 
And slays hiiu somehow. This was 

afterward : 
Enough, he promptly met with his 

deserts. 
And, ending thus, permits we end 

with him. 
And push forthwith to this imoor- 

tant point — 
His matricide fell out, of ah -he 

days. 
Precisely when the law-procedure 

closed 
Respecting Count Francesco Cenci's 

death 
Chargeable on his daughter, sons, and 

wife. 
" Thus patricide was matched with 

matricide," 
A poet not inelegantly rhymed : 
Nay, fratricide — those Princes Mas- 

simi ! — 
Which so disturbed the spirit of the 

Pope 
That all the likelihood Rome enter- 
tained 
Of Beatrice's pardon vanished 

straiglit, 
Ajid she emlured the piteous death. 



Now see 
The sequel — what effect command- 
ment had 
For strict inquiry into this last case, 
When Cardinal Aldobrandini (great 
His etHcacy — nephew to the Pope !) 
Was bidden crush — ay, though his 

very hand 
Got soiled i' the act — crime spawning 

everywhere ! 
Because, when all endeavor had been 

used 
To catch the aforesaid Paolo, all in 

vain — 
" Make perquisition," quoth our Emi- 
nence, 
" Throughout his now deserted domi- 
cile ! 
Ransack the palace, roof, and floor, to 

find 
If haply any scrap of writing, hid 
In nook or corner, may convict — who 

knows ? — 
Brother Onofrio of intelligence 
With brother Paolo, as in brother- 
hood 
Is but too likely : crime spawns every- 
where ! " 

And, every cranny searched accord- 
ingly, 
There comes to light — O lynx-eyed 

Cardinal ! — 
Onofrio's unconsidered writing-scrap, 
The letter in reply to Paolo's prayer, 
The word of counsel that — things 

proving so, 
Paolo should act the proper knightly 

part. 
And do as was incumbent on a son, 
A brother — and a man of birth, be 
sure ! 

Whereat immediately the oflicers 
Proceeded to arrest Onofrio — found 
At foot-ball, child's play, unaware of 

harm. 
Safe with his friends, the Orsini, at 

their seat 
Monte Giordano ; as he left the house 
He came upon the watch in wait for 

him 
Set by the Barigel, — was caught and 

caged. 

News of which capture being, that 
same hour. 
Conveyed to Rome, forthwith out 
Eminence 



CENCIAJA. 



155 



Commands Taveina, Governor anil 

Juilgo, 
To have tlio process in especial care, 
Be, first To last, not only jiresident 
In person, but iiKiuisitor as well. 
Nor trust the by-work to a substitute : 
Bids him not, squeamish, keep the 

bench, but scrub 
The floor of Justice, so to speak, — go 

try 
His best in prison with the criminal ; 
Promising, as reward for by-work 

done 
Fairly on all-fours, that, success ob- 
tained 
And crime avowed, or such conniv- 
ency 
With crime as should procure a de- 
cent deatli — 
Himself will humbly beg — which 

means, procure — 
The Hat and Purple from his relative 
The Pope, and so repay a diligence 
"Which, meritorious in the Cenci-case, 
Mounts plainly here to Purple and 
the Hat. 

Whereupon did my lord the Gov- 
ernor 
So masterfully exercise the task 
Enjoined him, that he, day by day, 

and week 
By week, and month by month, from 

first to last 
Deserved the prize : now, punctual at 

his place. 
Played Judge, and now, assiduous at 

his post. 
Inquisitor — jiressed cusliion and 

scoured plank, 
Early and late. Noon's fervor and 

niglit's chill. 
Naught moved whom morn would, 

purpling, make amends ! 
So that observers laughed as, many a 

day. 
He left home, in July when day is 

flame. 
Posted to Tordinona-]irison, plunged 
Into the vault wlnn-e daylong niglit is 

ice. 
There passed his eight hours on a 

stretch, content. 
Examining Onofrio : all the stress 
Of all examination steadily 
Converging into one pin-point, — he 

pushed 
Tentative now of head and now of 

heart. 



As when the nut-hatch taps and tries 

Xhv. nut 
This side and that side till the kernel 

sounds, — 
So did he press the sole and single 

l)oint 

— What was the very meaning of the 

piirase 
" Do ivliat beseems an hoiiored cavor 
Her?" 

Which one persistent question-tor- 
ture, — plied 

Day by day, W(u?k l)y week, and month 
by montli. 

Morn, noon, and night, — fatigued 
away a mind 

Grown imbecih; by darkness, solitude, 

And one vivacious memory gnawing 
there 

As when a corpse is coffined with a 
snake : 

— Fatigued Onofrio into what might 

seem 

Admission that perchance his judg- 
ment groped 

So blindly, feeling for an issue — aught 

Witli semblance of an issue from the 
toils 

Cast of a sudden round feet late so 
free, — 

He possibly might have envisaged, 
scarce 

Recoiled from — even were the issue 
death 

— Even her death whose life was death 

and worse ! 

Always provided that the charge of 
crime. 

Each jot and tittle of the charge were 
true. 

In sucli a sense, belike, he might ad- 
vise 

His brother to expurgate crime with 
. . . well. 

With blood, if blood must follow on 
" the courxe 

Taken as mi(/ht beseem a cavalier." 

Whereupon process ended, and re- 
port 
Was made; without a minute of delay 
To Clement, who, because of those two 

crimes 
O' the Massimi and Cenci flagrant late, 
Must needs impatiently desire result. 

Result obtained, he bade the Gov- 
ernor 



156 



C£XC/AJA. 



Summon the Congregation and de- 
spatch. 
Summons made, sentence j^assed ac- 
cordingly 
— Death by beheading. When his 

death-<.1ecree 
Was intimated to Onofriti, all 
Man could do — that did he to save 

himself. 
'Twas much, the ha\-ing gained for his 

defence 
The Advocate o'the Poor, with natural 

help 
Of many noble friendly persons fain 
To disengage a man of family, 
So young too, from his grim entangle- 
ment. 
But Cardinal Aldobrandini ruled 
There must be no diversion of the law. 
Justice is justice, and the magistrate 
Bears not the sword in vain. "Who 
sins must die. 

So, the Marchese had his head cut 

off 
In Place Saint Angelo beside the 

Bridge. 
With Rome to see, a concourse infi- 
nite ; 
Where magnanimity demonstrating 
Adequate to his birth and breed, — 

poor boy ! — 
He made the people the accustomed 

speech. 
Exhorted them to true faith, honest 

works. 
And special good behavior as regards 
A parent of no matter what the sex, 
Bidding each son take warning from 

himself. 
Truly, it was considered in the boy 
Stark staring lunacy, no less, to snap 
So plain a bait, be hooked and hauled 

ashore 
By such an angler as the Cardiual ! 
Why make confession of his privity 
To Paolo's enterprise ? Mere seal- 
ing lij^s — 
Or, betfer, saying, "When I foun- 

se'led him 
' To do as mi'/ht beseem a cavalier, ' 
What could I mean but, * Hide our 

parent's shame 
As Christian ought, by aid of Holy 

Church: 
Bury it in a convent — ay, beneath 
Enou(jh dotation to prevent its r/host 
From ttxiublinij earth .' ' " Mere saying 

thus, — 'tis jilain. 



Not only were his life the recompense, 

But lie had manifestly proved him- 
self 

True Christian, and in lieu of pun- 
ishment 

Been praised of all men ! — So the 
populace. 

Anyhow, when the Pope made 

promise good 
(That of Aldobrandini, near and dear) 
And gave Taverua, who had toiled 

so much. 
A cardinal's equipment, some such 

word 
As this from mouth to ear went 

saucily : 
" Taverna's cap is dyed in what he 

drew 
From Santa Croce's veins!" So 

joked the world. 

I add : Onofrio left one child behind, 
A daughter named Valeria, dowered 

with grace 
Abundantly of soul and body, doomed 
To life the shorter for her father's 

fate. 
By death of her, the Marquisate re- 
turned 
To that Orsini House from whence it 

came : 
Oriolo having passed as donative 
To Santa Croce from their ancestors. 

And no word more ? By all means ! 
Would you know 

The authoritative answer, when folks 
urged 

" What "made Aldobrandini, hound- 
like stanch. 

Hunt out of life a harmless simple- 
ton ? " 

The answer was — "Hatred implaca- 
ble. 

By reason they were rivals in their 
love." 

The Cardinal's desire was to a dame 

Whose favor was Onofrio's. Pricked 
with pride. 

The simpleton nnist ostentatiously 

Displav a ring, the Cardinal's love- 
gift. 

Given to Onofrio as the lady's gage : 

Which ring on finger, as he put forili 
hand 

To draw a tapestry, the Cardinal 

Saw and knew, gift and owner, old 
and young ; 



PORPHYRIAS LOVER. 



157 



Whereon a fury entered him — the 

tire 
He quenclied with wlmt could quench 

fire only — blood. 
Nay, more : " there want not who 

affirm to boot, 
The unwise boy, a certain festal eve, 
Feigned ignorance of who the wight 

might be 
That pressed too closely on him with 

a crowd. 
He stru(!k the Cardinal a blow : and 

then, 
To put a face upon the incident, 
Dared next day, smug as ever, go pay 

court 
I' the Cardinal's ante-chamber. Mark 

and mend, 
Ye youth, by this example how may 

greed 
Vainglorious operate in worldlj'^ 

souls ! " 

So ends the chronicler, beginning 

with 
" God's justice, tardy though it prove 

perchance, 
Rests never till it reach delinquency." 
Ay, or how otherwise had come to 

pass 
That Victor rules, this present year, 

in Rome ? 



PORPHYRTA'S LOVER. 



The rain set early in to-night, 
The sullen wind was soon awake, 

It tore the elm-tops down for spite. 
And did its worst to vex the lake, 

I listened with heart fit to break. 



When glided in Porphyria ; straight 
She shut che cold out and the storm, 
And kneeled, and made the cheerless 
grate 
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm ; 
Wliich done, she rose, and from her 
form 

III. 
Withdrew the dripping cloak and 
shawl. 
And laid her soiled gloves by, un- 
tied 



Her hat and let the damp hair fall, 

And, last, she sat down by my side 
And called me. When no' voice re- 
plied. 



She put my arm about lier waist, 
And made her smooth white shoul- 
der bare. 
And all her yellow hair displaced, 
And, stooping, made my cheek lie 
there. 
And spread, o'er all, her yellow 
hair, — 



Murmuring how she loved me — she 
Too weak, for all her heart's en- 
deavor. 
To set its struggling passion free 
From pride, and vainer ties dis- 
sever, 
And give herself to me forever. 



But passion sometimes would pre- 
vail. 
Nor could to-night's gay feast re- 
strain 
A sudden thought of one so pale 

For love of lier, and all in vain : 
So, she was come through wind and 
rain. 



Be sure I looked up at her eyes 
Happy and proud : at last I knew 

Porphyria worsliipped me ; surprise 
Made my heart swell, and still it 
grew 

While I debated what to do. 



That moment she was mine, mine, 
fair. 

Perfectly pure and good : I found 
A thing to do, and all her hair 

In one long yellow string I wound 
Three times her little throat around, 



And strangled her. No pain felt she ; 

I am quite sure she felt no pain. 
As a shut bud that holds a bee, 

I warily oped her lids : again 
Laughed the blue eyes without » 
stain- 



158 



FILirrO BALDINUCCI OX BURIAL. 



Ami I luitiglitened next the tress 
About her neck ; her cheek once 
more 
Blushed bright beneath my burning 
kiss : 
I propped her head up as before. 
Only, this time my shoulder bore 



Her head, which droops upon it still : 
The smiling rosy little head, 

So glad it has its utmost will, 
That all it scorned at once is fled, 

And I, its love, am gained instead I 

XII. 

Porphyria's love : she guessed not 
iiow 
Her darling one wish would be 
heard. 
And thus we sit together now. 
And all night long we have not 
stirred, 
And yet God has not said a word ! 



FILIPPO BALDIXUCCI OX THE 
PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL. 

A Reviiniscence of a.d. 1676. 

I. 
No, boy, we must not (so began 
My Uncle — he's with God long 
since — 
A-petting me, the good old man !) 
We must not (and he seemed to 
wince. 
And lose that laugh whereto had 
grown 
His chuckle at my niece of news. 
How cleverly I aimed my stone) 
I fear we must not pelt the Jews ! 



II. 
"When I was young indeed, — ah, faith 
Was young and strong in Florence 
too ! 
We Christians never dreamed of 
scathe 
Because we cursed or kicked the 
crew. 



But now — well, well ! The olive- 
crops 
Weighed double then, and Arno's 
pranks 
Would always spare religious shops 
Whenever he o'ertiowed his banks 1 



I'll tell you (and his eye regained 

Its twinkle) tell you something 
choice ! 
Something may help you keep un- 
stained 

Your honest zeal to stop the voice 
Of unbelief with stone-throw — spite 

Of laws, which iiiotlerii f<Hils enact. 
That we must suffer Jews in sight 

Go wholly unmolested ! Fact ! 

IV. 

There was, then, in my yourh, and yet 

Is, by San Frediauo, just 
Below the Blessed Olivet, 

A wayside ground wherein they 
thrust 
Their dead . — these Jews, — the more 
our shame ! 

Except that, so they will but die, 
We may perchance incur no blame 

In giving hogs a hoist to stye. 



There, anyhow, Jews stow away 

Their dead ; and, — such their inso- 
lence, — 
Slink at odd times to sing and pray 

As Christians do — all make-pre- 
tence ! — 
Which wickedness they perpetrate 

Because they think no Christians see 
They reckoned here, at any rate, 

Without their host : ha, ha, he, he ! 



For, what should join their plot of 
ground 
But a good Farmer's Christian field ? 
The Jews had hedged their corner 
round 
With bramble-bush to keep con- 
cealed 
Their doings : for the public road 
Ran betwixt this their ground and 
that 
The Farmer's, where he ploughed and 
sowed. 
Grew corn for barn and grapes for 
vat. 



t 



FILIFI'O BALDINUCCr ON BURIAL. 



159 



So, properly to guard liis store 

And fiall the unbelievers too, 
He builds a shrine ami, what is more, 

Procures a painter whom I knew. 
One Buti (he's with God) to jiaint 

A holy picturi! tlun-e — no less 
Than Virgin Mary free from taint 

Borne to the sky by angels : yes ! 



Which shrine he fixed, — who says 
him nay? — 
A-faoing with its picture-side 
Not, as you'd think, the ])nblic way, 
But just where sought these hounds 
to hid(( 
Their carrion from that very truth 
Of Mary's triumph : not a hound 
Could act his mummeries uncouth 
But Mary shamed the pack all 
round ! 



Now, if it was amusing, judge ! 

— "To see the company arrive, 
Each Jew intent to end his trudge 

And take his pleasure (though alive) 
With all his Jewish kith and kin 

Below ground, have his venom out, 
Sharpen his wits for next day's sin. 

Curse Christians, and so home, no 
doubt ! 



Whereas, each phiz upturned beholds 

Mary, I warrant, soaring brave ! 
And in a trice, beneath the folds 

Of filthy garb which gowns each 
knave, 
Down drops it — there to hide grimace, 

Contortion of the mouth and nose 
At finding Mary in the j)lace 

They'd keep for Pilate, I suppose ! 



At last, they will not brook — not 
tliey ! — 

Longer such outrage on their trihe : 
So, in some hole and corner, lay 

Their heads together — how to bribe 
The meritorious Farmer's self 

To straight undo his work, restore 
Their chance to meet, and muse on 
l-elf — 

Pretending sorrow, as before 1 



Forthwith, a posse, if you jilease. 

Of Rabbi This and Rabbi That 
Almost go down upon their knees 

To g(!t him lay tlu; picture flat. 
The spokesman, eighty years of age, 

Gray as a badger, with a goat's 
— Not only beard but bleat, 'gins wage 

War with our Mary. Thus he 
dotes : — 

XIII. 

" Friends, grant a grace ! How He; 
brews toil 
Through life in Florence — why re. 
late 
To those who lay the burden, spoil 
Our paths of peace ? We bear cui? 
fate. 
But wlien with life the long toil ends, 
Why must you — the expression 
craves 
Pardon, but truth compels me, 
friends ! — 
Why must you plague us in our 
graves ? 

XIV. 

" Thoughtlessly plague, I would be- 
lieve ! 

For how can you — the lords of ease 
By nurture, birthright — e'en conceive 

Our luxury to lie with trees 
And turf, — the cricket and the bird 

Left for our last com])anionship : 
No harsh deed, no unkindly word, 

No frowning brow nor scornful lip I 



" Death's luxury, we now rehearse 
While, living, through your streets 
we fare 
And take your hatred : nothing worse 
Have we, once dead and sale, to 
bear ! 
So we refresh our souls, fulfil 
Our works, our daily tasks ; and 
thus 
Gather you grain — earth's harvest — 
still 
The wheat for you, the straw for us. 



" ' What flouting in a face, what harm, 

In just a lady borne from bier 
By boys' heads, wings for leg and 
arm ? ' 
You question. Friends, the harm 
is here — 



IGO 



FILIPPO BALDINUCCI ON BURIAL. 



That just when our last sigh is heaved, 
And we would fain thank God and 
you 

For labor done and peace achieved, 
Back comes the Past in full review ! 



" At sight of just that simple flag, 

Starts the foe-feeling serpent-like 
From slumber. Leave it lulled, nor 
drag — 
Though f angless — forth, what needs 
must strike 
When stricken sore, though stroke be 
vain 
Against the mailed oppressor ! 
Give 
Play to our fancy that we gain 
Life's rights when once we cease to 
live ! 

XVIII. 

" Thus much to courtesy, to kind, 
To conscience ! Now to Florence 
folk! 
There's core beneath this apple-rind, 
Beneath this white of egg there's 
yolk ! 
Beneath this prayer to courtesy, 
Kind, conscience — there's a sum to 
pouch ! 
How many ducats down will buy 
Our shame's removal, sirs? Avouch! 



" Removal, not destruction, sirs ! 
Just turn your picture ! Let it 
front 
The public path ! Or memory errs, 

Or that same public path is wont 
To witness many a chance befall 
Of lust, theft, bloodshed — sins 
enough, 
Wherein our Hebrew part is small. 
Convert yourselves ! " — he cut up 
rough. 



Look you, how soon a service paid 

Religion yields the servant fruit ! 
A prompt reply our Farmer made 

So following : " Sirs, to grant your 
suit 
Involves much danger ! How ? Trans- 
pose 

Our Lady ? Stop the chastisement. 
All for your good, herself bestows ? 

What wonder if I grudge consent ? 



— " Yet grant it : since, what cash I 
take 

Is so much saved from wicked use. 
We know you ! And, for Mary's 
sake, 

A hundred ducats shall induce 
Concession to your prayer. One day 

Suffices : Master Buti's brush 
Turns Mary round the other way, 

And deluges your side with slush. 

XXII. 

" Down with the ducats therefore ! " 
Dump, 
Dump, dump it falls, each counted 
piece. 
Hard gold. Then out of door they 
stump. 
These dogs, each brisk as with new 
lease 
Of life, I warrant, — glad he'll die 
Henceforward just as he may 
choose, 
Be buried and in clover lie ! 
Well said Esaias — "stiff-necked 
Jews ! " 



Off posts without a minute's loss 

Our Farmer, once the cash in poke. 
And summons Buti — ere its gloss 
Have time to fade from off the 
joke — 
To chop and change his work, undo 
The done side, make the side, now 
blank, 
Recipient of our Lady — who, 
Displaced thus, had these dogs to 
thank ! 

XXIV. 

Now, you're no boy I need instruct 

In technicalities of Art ! 
My nephew's childhood sure has 
sucked 
Along with mother's-milk some part 
Of painter's-practice — learned, at 
least. 
How expeditiouslj'' is plied 
A work in fresco — never ceased 
When once begun — a day, each 
side. 

XXV. 

So, Buti — he's with God — begins : 
First covers up the shrine all round 

With hoarding ; then, as like ast\vin.s. 
Paints, t'other side the burial- 
ground. 



FJLIPPO BALDINUCCI ON BVRfAL. 



161 



New Mary, every point the same ; 

Next, sluices over, as agreed, 
The old ; and last — but, spoil the 
game 

By telling you ? Not I, indeed ! 



"Well, ere the week was half at end, 

Out came the object of this zeal, 
This fine alacrity to sjieiid 
Hard money for mere dead men's 
weal ! 
How think you? That old spokes- 
man Jew 
Was High Priest, and he had a 
wife 
As old, and she was dying too. 
And wished to end in peace her 
life! 



And he must humor dying whims, 

And soothe her with the idle hope 
They'd saj-^ their prayers and sing 
their hymns 
As if her husband were the Pope ! 
And she did die — believing just 
This privilege was purchased ! 
Dead 
In comfort through her foolish trust ! 
"Stiff-necked ones," well Esaias 
said ! 



So, Sabbath morning, out of gate 

And on to way. what sees our arch 
Good Farmer ? ' Why, they hoist their 
freight — 
The corpse — on shoulder, and so, 
march ! 
" Now for it, Buti ! " In the nick 
Of time 'tis pully-hauly, hence 
With hoarding ! O'er the wayside 
quick 
There's Mary plain in evidence ! 



And here's the convoy halting : right ! 
Oh, they are bent on howling psalms 
And growling prayers, when oppo- 
site ! 
And yet they glance, for all their 
qualms. 
Approve that promptitude of his. 
The Farmer's — duly at his post 
To take due thanks from every phiz. 
Sour smirk — nay, surly smile 
almost ! 



Then earthwartl drops each brow 
again ; 

The solemn task's resumed ; they 
reach 
Their holy field — the unholy train : 

Enter its precinct, all and each. 
Wrapt somehow in their godless rites ; 

Till, rites at end, up-waking, lo 
They lift their faces ! AVliat delights 

The mourners as they turn to go ? 



XXXI. 

Ha, ha, he, he ! On just the side 
They drew their purse-strings to 
make quit 
Of Mary, — Chi'ist the Crucified 
Fronted them now — these biters 
bit! 
Never was such a hiss and snort. 
Such screwing nose and shooting 
lip! 
Their purchase — honey in report — 
Proved gall and verjuice at first sip ! 



xxxir. 

Out they break, on they bustle, where, 

A-top of wall, the Farmer waits 
With Buti : never fun so rare ! 

The Farmer has the best : he rates 
The rascal, as the old High Priest 

Takes on himself to sermonize — 
Nay, sneer " We Jews supposed, at 
least. 

Theft was a crime in Christian 
eyes ! " 



"Theft?" cries the Farmer, "Eat 
your words ! 

Show me what constitutes a breach 
Of faith in aught was said or heard ! 

I promised you in plainest speech 
I'd take the thing you count disgrace 

And put it here — and hei'e 'tis put ! 
Did you suppose I'd leave the place 

Blank therefore, just your rage to 
glut? 



" I guess you dared not stipulate 
For such a damned impertinence ! 

So, quick, my graybeard, out of gate 
And in at Ghetto ! Haste you 
hence ! 



162 



FILIPPO BALDINUCCI ON BURIAL. 



As long as I have house and land, 
To si)ite j'ou irrelijjious chaps 

Here shall the Crucifixion stand — 
Unless you down with cash, jier- 
haps ! ' ' 

XXXV. 

So snickered he and Buti both. 

The Jews said nothing, interchanged 
A glance or two, renewed their oath 

To keep ears stopped and hearts 
estranged 
From grace, for all our Church can do. 

Then off they scuttle : sullen jog 
Homewards, against our Church to 
brew 

Fresh mischief in their synagogue. 



But next day — see what happened, 
boy ! 
See why I bid you have a care 
How yoti pelt Jews ! The knaves em- 
ploy 
Such methods of revenge, forbear 
No outrage ou our faith, when free 
To wreak their malice ! Here thej' 
took 
So base a method — plague o' me 
If I record it in my Book ! 

xxxvii. 
For, next day, while the Farmer sat 

Laughing with Buti, in his shop, 
At their successful joke, — rat-tat, — 

Door opens, and tliey're like to drop 
Down to the floor as in there stalks 

A six-feet-high herculean-built 
Young he-Jew with a beard that balks 

Description. " Help, ere blood be 
spilt!" 

XXXVIII. 

— Screamed Buti : for he recognized 

Whom but the son, no less no more. 
Of that High Priest his work surprised 

So pleasantly the day before ! 
Son of the mother, then, whereof 

The bier he lent a shoulder to, 
And made the moans about, dared 
scoff 

At sober, Christian grief — the Jew ! 

XXXIX. 

" Sirs, I salute you ! Never rise ! 

No apprehension ! " (Buti, white 
And trembling like a tub of size. 

Had tried to smuggle out of sight 



The picture's self — the thing in oils. 
You know, from which a fresco's 
dashed 
Which courage speeds while caution 
spoils) 
" Stay and be praised, sir, una- 
bashed ! 

XL. 

" Praised, — ay, and paid too : for I 
come 
To buy that very work of yours. 
My poor abode, M-hich boasts — well, 
some 
Few specimens of Art, secures 
Haply, a masterpiece indeed 

If I should find my humble means 
Suffice the outlay. So, proceed ! 
Propose — ere prudence inter- 
venes ! " 



On Buti, cowering like a child. 

These words descended from aloft, 
In tone so ominously mild, 

With smile terrifically soft 
To that degree — could Buti dare 

(Poor fellow) use his brains, think 
twice ? 
He asked, thus taken unaware. 

No more than just the proper price ! 

XLII. 

" Done ! " cries the monster. " I dis- 
burse 

Forthwith your moderate demand. 
Count on my custom — if no worse 

Y'^our future work be, understand. 
Than this I carrj' off ! No aid ! 

My arm, sir, lacks nor bone nor 
thews : 
The burden's easy, and we're made, 

Easy or hard, to bear — we Jews I " 

XI.III. 

Crossing himself at such escape, 
Buti by turns the money eyes 
And, timidly, the stalwart shape 
Now moving doorwards ; but, more 
wise. 
The Farmer, — who, though dumb, 
this while 
Had watched advantage, — straight 
conceived 
A reason for that tone and smile 
So mild and soft! The Jew — be- 
lieved ! 



FILirPO BALDINUCCl ON BURIAL. 



163 



XLIV. 

Mary in triumph borne to deck 

A Hebrew household ! Pictured 
where 
No one was used to bend the neck 

In praise or bow the knee in praj'er ! 
Borue to that domicile by whom? 
The son of the High Priest ! 
Through what? 
An insult done his mother's tomb ! 
Saul changed to Paul — the case 
came pat ! 



" Stay, dog-Jew 



gentle sir, that 



Resolve me ! Can it be, she 
crowned — 
Mary, by miracle — Oh bliss ! — 

My present to your burial-ground ? 
Certain, a ray of light has burst 
Your veil of darkness ! Had you 
else, 
Only for Mary's sake, unpursed 
So much hard money? Tell — oh, 
tell's ! " 



Round — like a serpent that we took 
For worm and trod on — turns his 
bulk 
About the Jew. First dreadful look 

Sends Buti in a trice to skulk 
Out of sight somewhere, safe — alack ! 
But our good Farmer faith made 
bold : 
And firm (with Florence at his back) 
He stood, while gruff the gutturals 
rolled — 



"Ay, sir, a miracle was worked. 

By quite another power, I trow, 
Than ever yet in canvas lurked. 

Or you would scarcely face me now ! 
A certain impulse did suggest 

A certain grasp with this right- 
hand. 
Which probably had put to rest 

Our quarrel, — thus your throat once 
spanned ! 

XLvm. 

"But I remembered me, subdued 
That impulse, and you face me still ! 

And soon a philosoiiliic mood 
Succeeding (hear it, if you will !) 



Has altogether changed my views 
Concerning Art. Blind prejudice ! 

Well may you Christians tax us Jews 
With scrupulosity too nice ! 



"For, don't I see, — let's issue 
join! — 

Whenever I'm allowed pollute 
(I — and my little bag of coin) 

Some Christian jialace of repute, — ' 
Don't I see stuck up everywhere 

Abundant proof that cultured taste 
Has Beauty for its onlj^ care. 

And upon Truth no thought to 
waste ? 



" ' Jew, since it must be, take in 
pledge 

Of payment' — so a Cardinal 
Has sighed to me as if a wedge 

Entered his heart — ' this best of all 
My treasures ! ' Leda, Ganymede, 

Or Antiope : swan, eagle, ape 
(Or what's the beast of what's the 

breed). 
And Jupiter in every shape ! 



" Whereat if I presume to ask 
' But, Eminence, though Titian's 
whisk 
Of brush have well performed its task, 
How comes it these false godshijjs 
frisk 
In presence of — what yonder frame 
Pretends to image ? Surely, odd 
It seems, you let confront The Name 
Each beast the heathen called his 
god ! ' 

LII. 

" Benignant smiles me pitv straight 

The Cardinal. ' 'Tis Truth, we 
prize ! 
Art's the sole question in debate ! 

These subjects are so many lies. 
We treat them with a proper scorn 

When we turn lies — called gods for- 
sooth — 
To lies' fit use, now Christ is born. 

Drawing and coloring are Truth. 



" ' Think you I honor lies so much 
As scruple to parade the charms 

Of Leda — Titian, every touch — 
Because the thing within her arms 



164 



SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER. 



Means Jupiter who had the praise 
And prayer of a benighted world ? 

Benighted I too, if, in days 
Of light, I kept the canvas furled ! ' 



" So ending, with some easy gibe. 

What power has logic ! I, at once, 
Acknowledged error in our tribe, 

So squeamish that, when friends 
ensconce 
A pretty picture in its niche 

To do us honor, deck our graves. 
We fret and fume and have an itch 

To strangle folk — ungrateful 
knaves ! 



" No, sir ! Be sure that — what's its 
style, 

Your picture ? — shall possess un- 
grudged 
A place among my rank and file 

Of Ledas and what not — be judged 
Just as a picture ! — and (because 

I fear me much I scarce have bought 
A Titian) Master Buti's flaws 

Found there, will have the laugh 
> flaws ought ! " 



So, with a scowl, it darkens door — 

This bulk — no longer ! Buti makes 
Prompt glad re-entry; there's a score 
Of oaths, as the good Farmer wakes 
From what must needs have been a 
trance, 
Or he had struck (he swears) to 
ground 
The bold bad mouth that dared ad- 
vance 
Such doctrine the reverse of sound ! 



Was magic here ? Most like ! For, 
since, 
Somehow our city's faith grows still 
More and more lukewarm, and our 
Prince 
Or loses heart or wants the will 
To check increase of cold. 'Tis 
" Live 
And let live ! Languidly repress 
The Dissident ! In short, — contrive 
Christians must bear with Jews: no 
less ! " 



LVIII. 

The end seems, any Israelite 

W^ants any picture, — pishes, poohs, 
Purchases, hangs it full in sight 

In any chamber he may choose ! 
In Christ's crown, one more thorn we 
rue ! 

In Mary's bosom, one more sword ! 
No, boy, you must not pelt a Jew ! 

O Lord, how long? How long, O 
Lord? 



SOLILOQUY OF THE SPAN- 
ISH CLOISTER. 



I. 
Gr-r-r — there go, m j' heart's abhor- 
rence ! 
Water your damned flower-pots, 
do! 
If hate killed men. Brother Lawrence, 
God's blood, would not mine kill 
you ! 
What ? your myrtle-bush ^vants trim- 
ming ? 
Oh, that rose has prior claims — 
Needs its leaden vase filled brim- 
ming? 
Hell dry you up with its flames ! 



At the meal we sit together : 

Salve llbi .' I must hear 
Wise talk of tlie kind of weather, 

Sort of season, time of year : 
Not a plenteous cork-crop : scarcely 

Dare ice hope oak-galls, I doubt : 
What's the Latin name for " pco'sley " f 

What's the Greek name for Swine'? 
Snout ? 



Whew ! We'll have our platter bur- 
nished. 

Laid with care on our own shelf ! 
With a fire-new spoon we're fur 
nished. 

And a goblet for ourself, 
Rinsed like something sacrificial 

Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps — 
Marked with L. for our initial ! 

(He-he I There his lily snaiis !) 



THE HERETIC'S TRAGEDY. 



165 



Saint, forsootli !. While brown Do- 
lores 

Sqnats outside tlio Convent bank 
With Sanehicha, telling stories, 

Steeping tresses in the tank, 
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horse- 
hairs, 

— Can't I see liis dead eye glow, 
Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's? 

(That is, if he'd let it show !) 



"When he finishes refection, 

Knife and fork he never lays 
Cross-wise, to my recollection, 

As do I, in Jesu's praise. 
I the Trinity illustrate. 

Drinking watered orange-pulp — 
In three sips the Arian frustrate ; 

While he drains his at one gulp. 



Oh, those melons ? If he's able 

We're to have a feast ! so nice ! 
One goes to the Abbot's table. 

All of us get each a slice. 
How go on your flowers? None 
double ? 

Not one fruit-sort can you spy ? 
Strange ! —And I, too, at such trouble 

Keep them close-nipped on the sly ! 



There's a great text in Galatians, 

Once you trip on it, entails 
Twenty-nine distinct damnations, 

One sure, if another fails : 
If I trip him just a-dying. 

Sure of heaven as sure can be, 
Spin him round and send him flying 

Off to hell, a Manichee ? 



Or, my scrofulous French novel 

On gray pa]ier with blunt type ! 
Simply glance at it, you grovel 

Hand and foot in Belial's gripe : 
If I double down its pages 

At the woful sixteenth print. 
When he gathers his greengages, 

Ope a sieve and slip it in't ? 



Or, there's Satan ! — one might ven- 
ture 
Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave 



Such a flaw in the indenture 
As he'd miss till, past retrieve, 

Blasted lay that rose-acacia 
We're so jn-oud of ! ////, Zij, Iliiie . . 

'St, there's Vespers ! Plena gratia. 
Ave, Virgo ! Gr-r-r — you swine ! 



THE HERETIC'S TRAGEDY. 

A MIDDLE-AGE INTERLUDE. 

ROSA MUNDI ; SEU, FULCITE ME FLORIBUS. 
A CONCEIT OF MASTER GYSBRECHT, 
CANON-REGULAR OF SAINT JODOCUS-BY 
THE-BAR, YPRES CITY'. CANTUQUE, Vir- 
giUu!<. AND HATH OFTEN BEEN .SUNG 
AT HOCK-TIDE AND FESTIVALS. GAVI- 

sus ERAM, Jessides. 

(It would seem to be a glimpse from llie 
burning of Jacques du Bourg-Molay, at 
Paris, A.D. 1314 ; as distorted by tbe refrac- 
tion from Flemish brain to brain, during the 
course of a couple of centuries.) 



PREADMONISHETH THE ABBOT DEO- 
DAET. 

The Lord, we look to once for all, 
Is the Lord we should look at, all 
at once : 
He knows not to vary, saith Saint 
Paul, 
Nor the shadow of turning, for the 
nonce. 
See him no other than as he is ! 
Give both the infinitudes theif 
due — 
Infinite mercy, but, I wis, 
As infinite a justice too. 

[Orr/an : plagal-cadence. 
As infinite a justice too. 



II, 



ONE SINGETH. 

John, Master of the Temple of God, 

Falling to sin the Unknown Sin, 
What he bought of Emperor Alda- 
brod, 
He sold it to Sultan Saladin : 
Till, caught by Pope Clement, a-buzz- 
ing there. 
Hornet-prince of the mad wasp? 
hive, 



IGQ 



THE HERETIC'S TRAGEDY. 



And dipt of his wings in Paris square, 
Tiiey bring him now to be burned 
alive. 
[And ivunteth there grace of late 
orclavicithern, ye shall say to 
covjirm him viho sim/eth — 
We bring John now to be burned 
alive. 

III. 
In the midst is a goodly gallows built ; 
'Twixt fork and fork, a stake is 
stuck ; 
But first they set divers tumbrils 
a-tilt, 
Make a trench all round with the 
city muck ; 
Inside tiiey pile log upon log, good 
store ; 
Fagots not few, blocks great and 
small, 
Reach a man's mid-thigh, no less, no 
more, — 
For they mean he should roast in 
the sight of all. 



We mean he should roast in the 
sight of all. 



Good sappy bavins that kindle forth- 
with ; 
Billets that blaze substantial and 
slow ; 
Pine-stumj) split deftly, dry as pith ; 
Larch-heart that chars to a chalk- 
white glow : 
Then up they hoist me John in a chafe, 
Siing him fast like a hog to scorch, 
Spit in his face, then leap back safe. 
Sing " Laudes," and bid clap-to the 
torch. 



Laiis Deo — who bids clap-to the 
torch. 



John of the Temple, whose fame so 
bragged. 
Is burning alive in Paris square ! 
How can he curse, if his mouth is 
gagged ? 
Or wriggle his neck, with a collar 
there ? 
Or heave his chest, while a band goes 
round ? 
Or threat with his fist, since his 
arms are spliced ? 



Or kick with his feet, now his legs are 
bound ? 
— Thinks John, I will call upon 
Jesus Christ. 

[Here one crosseth himself. 



Jesus Christ — John had bought and 
sold, 
Jesus Christ — John had eaten and 
drunk ; 
To him, the Flesh meant silver and 
gold. 
{Salvd reverentid.) 
Now it was, " Saviour, bountiful lamb, 
I have roasted thee Turks, though 
men roast me ! 
See thy servant, the plight wherein I 
am ! 
Art thou a saviour? Save thou 
me ! " 

CHORUS. 

'Tis John the mocker cries, "Sav« 
thou me ! " 



Who maketh God's menace an idle 
word ? 
— Saith, it no more means what it 
proclaims, 
Than a damsel's threat to her wanton 
bird? — 
For she too prattles of ugly names. 
— Saith, be knoweth but one thing, — 
what he knows ? 
That God is good and the rest is 
breath ; 
Why else is the same styled Sharon's 
rose ? 
Once a rose, ever a rose, he saith. 



Oh, John shall yet find a rose, he 
saith. 

VIII. 

Alack, there be roses and roses, John ! 
Some honeyed of taste like your 
leman's tongue : 
Some, bitter ; for why ? (roast gayly 
on !) 
Their tree struck root in devil's 
dung. 
When Paul once reasoned of righteous- 
ness 
And of temperance and of judgment 
to come, 



HOLY-CROSS DAY. 



167 



Good Felix trembled, he could no less : 
John, snickering, crooked his 
wicked thumb. 

CHORUS. 

"What Cometh to John of the wicked 
thumb ? 

IX. 

Ha, ha ! John iilucketh now at his 
rose 
To rid himself of a sorrow at heart ! 
Lo, — petal on petal, fierce rays un- 
close ; 
Anther on anther, sharp spikes out- 
start ; 
And with blood for dew, the bosom 
boils ; 
And a gust of sulphur is all its smell ; 
And lo, he is liorribly in the toils 
Of a coal-black giant fiower of hell ! 

CHOKUS. 

What maketh heaven, That maketh 
hell. 

X. 

So, as John called now, through the 
fire amain, 
On the Name, he had cursed with, 
all his life — 
To the Person, he bought and sold 
again — 
FoT the Face, with his daily buffets 
rife — 
Feature by feature It took its place ; 
And his voice, like a mad dog's 
choking bark. 
At the steady whole of the Judge's 
face — 
Died. Forth John's soul flared into 
the dark. 



BUBJOINETH THE ABBOT DEODAET. 

God help all poor souls lost in the 
dark ! 



HOLY-CROSS DAY. 

ON Wrirr-FI THE JEWS WERE FORCED 
TO .ATTKNI) AN ANNUAL CHRIS- 
TIAN SEliMON IX ROME. 

I" Now w;i8 come about Holy-Cross Day, 
and now must my lord pre.-xch his first ser 
mon to the Jews : as it was of old cared for 
in the merciful bowels of the Church, that, 



so to sptak, a crumb, at least, from her coi> 
spicuous taljle here in Rome, should bi', 
ihouiih but once yearly, cast to the famish- 
ing dogs, under-trampled and bespitten-upon 
beneath the feet of the guests. And a mov- 
ing sight in truth, this, of so many of the 
besotted blind reslif and ready-to-perish He- 
brews! now maternally brought — nay (for 
He saith, ' Compel them to come in '), haled, 
as it were, by the head and hair, and against 
their obstinate hearts, to partake of the 
heavenly grace. What awakening, vliat 
strivmg with tears, what working of a yeai ly 
conscience ! Nor was my lord wanting to 
himself on so apt an occasion; witness the 
abundance of conversions wliich did inconti- 
nently reward him : though not to my lord 
be altogether the glory." — Diary by the 
Bishop's Secretary, 1600.] 

What the Jews really said, on thus being 
driven to church, was rather to this effect : — 



Fee, faw, fum ! bubble and squeak ! 
Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the 

week. 
Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough, 
Stinking and savory, smug and gruff. 
Take the church-road, for the bell's 

due chime 
Gives us the summons — 'tis sermon- 
time ! 



Boh, here's Barnabas ! Job, that's 
you ? 

Up stumps Solomon — bustling too ? 

Shame, man ! greedy beyond your 
years 

To handsel the bishop's shaving- 
shears ? 

Fair play's a jewel ! Leave friends 
in the lurch ? 

Stand on a line ere you start for the 
church ! 



Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie. 
Rats in a hamper, swine in a sty. 
Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve. 
Worms in a carcass, fleas in a sleeve. 
Hist ! square shoulders, settle your 

thumbs 
And buzz for the bishop — here he 

comes. 



Bow, wow, wow — a bone for the 

dog! 
I liken his Grace to an acorned hog. 



168 



HOLY CROSS DAY. 



What, a boy at his side, with the 
bloom of a lass, 

To help and handle my lord's hour- 
glass ! 

Didst ever behold so lithe a chine ? 

Jlis cheek hath laps like a fresh- 
singed swine. 



Aaron's asleep — shove hip to hannch. 
Or somebody deal him a dig in the 

paunch ! 
Look at the purse with the tassel and 

knob, 
And the gown with the angel and 

thingumbob ! 
"What's he at, quotha? reading his 

text ! 
Now you've his curtsey — and what 

comes next ? 



See to our converts — you doomed 

black dozen — 
No stealing away — nor cog nor 

cozen ! 
You five, that were thieves, deserve 

it fairly ; 
You seven, that were beggars, will 

live less sparely ; 
You took vour turn and dipped in the 

hat,*^ 
Got fortune — and fortune gets you ; 

mind that ! 



Give your first groan — compunction's 

at work ; 
And soft ! from a Jew you mount to 

a Turk. 
Lo, Micah, — the selfsame beard on 

chin 
He was four times already converted 

in! 
Here's a knife, clip quick — it's a sign 

of grace — 
Or he ruins us all with his hanging- 
face. 

viii. 
Whom now is the bishop a-leering at ? 
I know a jioiut wliere his text falls 

pat. 
I'll tell him to-morrow, a word just 

now 
Went to my heart and made me vow 
To meddle no more with tlie worst of 

trades : 
Let somebody else play his serenades 1 



Groan all together now, whee — hee 

— hee ! 
It's a-work, it's a-work, ah, woe is 

me ! 
It began, when a herd of us, picked 

and placed, 
Were spurred through the Corso, 

stripped to the waist ; 
Jew brutes, with sweat and blood 

well spent 
To usher in worthily Christian Lent. 



It grew, when the hangman entered 
our bounds, 

Yelled, pricked us out to his church 
like hounds : 

It got to a pitch, when the hand in- 
deed 

Which gutted my purse, would throt- 
tle my creed : 

And it overflows, when, to even the 
odd. 

Men I helped to their sins, help rr.3 to 
their God. 



But now, while the scapegoats leave 

our flock, 
And the rest sit silent and count the 

clock. 
Since forced to muse the appointed 

time 
On these precious facts and truths 

sublime, — 
Let us fitly emploj' it, under our 

breath, 
In saying Ben Ezra's Song of Death. 



For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he 

died. 
Called sons and sons' sons to his side, 
And spoke, " This world has been 

harsh and strange ; 
Something is wrong : there needeth a 

change. 
But what, or where? at the last or 

first? 
In one point only we sinned, at worst. 



" The Lord will have mercy on Jacob 

yet. 
And again in his border see Israel 

set. 



AMPHIBIAN. 



169 



When Judah beholds Jerusalem, 

The stranger-seed shall be joined to 
them : 

To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles 
cleave, 

So the Prophet saith and his sons be- 
lieve. 

XIV. 

" Ay, the children of the chosen race 

Shall carry and bring them to their 
place : 

In the land of the Lord shall lead the 
same, 

Bondsmen and handmaids. Who 
shall blame, 

When the slaves enslave, the op- 
pressed ones o'er 

The oppressor triumph for evermore ! 



"God spoke, and gave us the word to 

keep : 
Bade never fold the hands nor sleep 
'Mid a faithless world, — at watch and 

ward, 
Till Christ at the end relieve our 

guard ■ 
By his servant Moses the watch was 

set : 
Though near upon cock-crow, we keep 

it yet. 

XVI. 

" Thou ! if thou wast he, who at mid- 
watch came. 

By the starlight, naming a dubious 
name ! 

And if, too heavy with sleep — too 
rash 

With fear — O thou, if that martyr- 
gash 

Fell on thee coming to take thine own. 

And we gave the Cross, when we 
owed the Throne — 



"Thou art the Judge. We are 

bruised thus, 
r.iit, the Judgment over, join sides 

with us ! 
Thine too is the cause ! and not more 

thine 
Than ours, is the work of these dogs 

and swine, 
Whose life laughs through and spits 

at their creed. 
Who maintain thee in word, and defy 

thee in deed ! 



XVIII. 

"We withstood Christ then? Be 

mindful how 
At least we withstand Barabbas now ! 
Was our outrage sore ? But the worst 

we spared, 
To have called these —Christians, had 

we dared ! 
Let defiance to them pay mistrust of 

thee. 
And Rome make amends for Calvary ! 



" By the torture, prolonged from age 
to age. 

By the infamy, Israel's heritage, 

By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's 
disgrace. 

By the badge of shame, by the felon's 
place. 

By the branding-tool, the bloody 
whip, 

And the summons to Christian fellow- 
ship, — 



" We boast our proof that at least the 

Jew 
Would wrest Christ's name from the 

Devil's crew. 
Thy face took never so deep a shade 
But we f lught them in it, God our 

aid! 
A trophy to bear, as we march, thy 

band 
South, East, and on to the Pleasant 

Land ! ' ' 
\_Thc late Pope abolished this bad 

business of the sermon. — R. B.] 



AMPHIBIAN. 



The fancy I had to-day, 
Fancy which turned a fear I 

I swam far out in the bay, 
Since waves laughed warm and 
clear. 



I lay and looked at the sun. 
The noon-sun looked at me : 

Between us two, no one 
Live creature, that I could see. 



170 



AMPHIBIAN. 



Yes ! There came floating by 
Me, who lay floating too, 

Such a strange butterfly ! 
Creature as dear as new : 

IV. 

Because the membraned wings 
So wonderful, so wide, 

So sun-suffused, were things 
Like soul and naught beside. 



A handbreadth over head ! 

All of the sea my own. 
It owned the sky instead ; 

Both of us were alone. 



I never shall ioin its flight, 
For naught buoys flesh in air. 

If it touch the sea — good-night ! 
Death sure and swift waits there. 



Can the insect feel the better 
For watching the uncouth play 

Of limbs that slip the fetter. 
Pretend as they were not clay ? 

VIII. 

Undoubtedly I rejoice 
That the air comports so well 

"With a creature which had the choice 
Of the land once. Who can tell ? 



What if a certain soul 

Which early slipped its sheath, 
And has for its home the whole 

Of heaven, thus look beneath, 



Thus watch one who, in the world, 
Both lives and likes life's way. 

Nor wishes the wings unfurled 
That sleep in the worm, they say ? 



But sometimes when the weather 
Is blue, and warm waves tempt 

To free one's self of tether, 
And try a life exempt 



From worldly noise and dust. 
In the sphere which overbrims 

With passion and thought, — whv, 
just 
Unable to fly, one swims ! 



XIII. 

By passion and thought upborne, 
One smiles to one's self — "They 
fare 

Scarce better, they need not scorn 
Our sea, who live in the air ! " 



Emanci]iate through passion 
And thought, with sea for sky, 

We substitute, in a fashion, 
For heaven — poetry : 



Which sea, to all intent, 
Gives flesh such noon-disport 

As a finer element 
Affords the spirit-sort. 



XVI. 

Whatever they are, we seem : 
Imagine the' thing they know ; 

All deeds they do, we dream ; 
Can heaven be else but so ? 



xvix. 

And meantime, yonder streak 
Meets the horizon's verge ; 

That is the land, to seek 
If we tire or dread the surge 



x^Tn. 
Land the solid and safe — 

To welcome again (confess I) 
When, high and dry, we chafe 

The body, and don the dress. 

XIX. 

Does she look, pity, wonder 
At one who mimics flight, 

Swims — heaven above, sea under, 
Yet always earth in sight ? 



ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 



171 



ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 


vti. 




Nay, blame grief that's fickle, 


I. 


Time that ]iro\'es a traitor, 


No protesting, dearest ! 


Chance, change, all that purpose 


Hardly kisses even ! 


warps, — 


Don't we both know how it ends ? 


Death who spares to thrust the sickle. 


How tlie greenest leaf turns searest ? 


Which laid Love low, through fiow- 


Bluest outbi'eak — blankest heaven ? 


ers which later 


Lovers — friends ? 


Shroud the corpse ! 



You would build a mansion, 
I would weave a bower 
— Want the heart for enterprise. 
Walls admit of no expansion : 
Trellis-work may haply flower 
Twice the size. 



What makes glad Life's Winter? 
New buds, old blooms after. 
Sad tlie sighing " How suspect 
Beams would ere mid-autumn splin- 
ter, 
Rooftree scarce support a rafter, 
Walls lie wrecked ? " 



You are young, my princess ! 
I am hardly older : 
Yet — I steal a glance behind ! 
Dare I tell you what convinces 
Timid me that vou, if bolder, 
Bold — are blind ? 



Where we plan our dwelling 
Glooms a graveyard surely ! 
Headstone, footstone moss may 
drape, — 
Name, date, violets hide from spell- 
ing. - 
But, though corpses rot obscurely, 
Ghosts escape. 



Ghosts ! O breathing Beauty, 
Give my frank word pardon ! 
What if I — somehow, some- 
where — 
Pledged my soul to endless duty 
Many a time and oft? Be hard on 
Love — laid there ? 



And you, my winsome lady, 
Whisper tuc with like frankness ! 
Lies nothing buried long ago ? 
Are yon — which shimmer mid what's 
shady 
Where moss and violet run to rank- 
ness — 
Tombs, or no ? 



Who taxes you with murder ? 
My hands are clean — or nearly ! 
Love being mortal needs must 
pass. 
Repentance ? Nothing were absurder. 
Enough : we felt Love's loss se- 
verely ; 
Though now — alas ! 



Love's corpse lies quiet therefore, 
Only Love's ghost plays truant. 
And warns us have in wholesome 
awe 
Durable mansionry; that's wherefore 
I weave but treliis-work, pursuant 
— Life, to law. 



The solid, not the fragile. 
Tempts rain and hail and thunder. 
If bower stand firm at autumn's 
close, 
Beyond my hope, — why, boughs were 
agile ; 
If bower fall flat, we scarce need 
wonder 
Wreathing — rose ! 



So, truce to the protesting. 
So, muffled be the kisses ! 
For, would we but a^'ow the truth, 
Sober is genuine joy. No jesting! 
Ask else Penelope, Ulysses-^ 
Old in youth I 



172 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE. 



For why should ghosts feel angered ? 
Let all their interference 
Be faint luarch-iuusic in the air ! 
" Up ! Join the rear of us the van- 
guard 1 
Up, lovers, dead to all appearance, 
Laggard pair ! " 



The while you clasp me closer, 
The while I press you deeper, 
As safe we chuckle, — under 
breath, 
Yet all the slyer, the jocoser, — 
" So, life can boast its day, like lea^v 
year, 
Stolen from death ! " 



Ah me — the sudden terror ! 
Hence quick — avaunt, avoid me. 
You cheat, the ghostly flesh-dis- 
guised ! 
Nay, all the ghosts in one ! Strange 
error ! 
So, 'twas Death's self that clipped 
and coyed me. 
Loved — and lied ! 



Ay. dead loves are the potent ! 
Like any cloud they used you, 
Mere semblance you, but sub- 
stance they ! 
Build we no mansion, weave we no 
tent ! 
Mere flesh — their spirit interfused 
you ! 
Hence, I say ! 



XVII. 

All theirs, none yours the glamour !' 
Theirs each low word that won 
me, 
Soft look that found me Love's, 
and left 
What else but you — the tears and 
clamor 
That's all your very own ! Undone 
me — " 
Ghost-bereft ! 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE. 
I. 

JAMES LEE'S WIFE SPEAKS AT 
THE WDCDOW. 



Ah, Love, but a day, 

And the world has changed 1 
The suu's away, 

And the bird estranged ; 
The wind has dropped. 

And the sky's deranged : 
Summer has stopped. 



Look in my eyes ! 

Wilt thou change too? 
Should I fear surprise ? 

Shall I find aught new 
In the old and dear, 

In the good and true, 
With the changing year ? 

III. 
Thou art a man. 

But I am thy love. 
For the lake, its swan ; 

For the dell, its dove ; 
And for thee — (oh, haste !) 

3Ie to bend above, 
Me, to hold embraced. 



n. 

BY THE FIRESrDB. 



Is all our fire of shipwreck wood, 

Oak and pine ? 
Oh. for the ills half-understood, 

The dim dead woe 

Long ago 
Befallen this bitter coast of France ! 
Well, poor sailors took their chance ; 

I take mine. 

II. 
A ruddy shaft our fire must shoot 

O'er the sea ; 
Do sailors eye the casement — mate 

Drenched and stark. 

From their bark ^ 



JAMES LEE-S WIFE 



173 



And envy, gnash their teeth for hato 
O' the warm safe house and hapi)y 
freight 
— Thee and nie ? 



God help you, sailors, at your need 1 

Spare the curse ! 
I''or some sliips, safe in port indeed, 

Itot and rust, 

Knn to dust, 
All through worms i' the wood, which 

crept. 
Gnawed our hearts out while we 
slept : 

That is worse. 



Who lived here before us two ? 

Old-world pairs. 
Did a woman ever — would I knew 1 — 

Watch the man 

With whom began 
Love's voyage full-sail, — (now, gnash 

your teeth ! ) 
When planks start, open hell beneath 

Unawares ? 



III. 

IN THE DOORWAY. 



The swallow has set her six young on 

the rail, 
And looks seaward : 
The water's in stripes like a snake, 

olive-pale 
To the leeward, — 
On the weather-side, black, spotted 

white with the wind. 
"Good fortune departs, and disaster's 

behind," — 
Hark, the wind with its wants and its 

infinite wail ! 



Our fig-tree, that leaned for the salt- 
ness, has furled 
Her five fingers, 
Each leaf like a hand opened wide to 
the world 
Where there lingeis 



No glint of the gold. Summer sent for 

her sake ; 
How the vines writhe in rows, each 

impaled on its stake ! 
My heart shrivels uj) and my spirit 

shrinks curled. 



Yet here are we two ; we have love, 
house enougli. 
With the field there. 

This liouse of four rooms, that field 
red and rough, 
Though it yield there. 

For the rabbit that robs, scarce a 
blade or a bent ; 

If a magpie alight now, it seems an 
event ; 

And they both will be gone at Novem- 
ber's rebuff. 



But why must cold spread ? but 

"wherefore bring change 
To the spirit, 
God meant should mate his with an 

infinite range. 
And inherit 
His power to put life in the darkness 

and cold ? 
O, live and love worthily, bear and 

be bold ! 
Whom Summer made friends of, let 

Winter estrange ! 



IV. 

ALONG THE BEACH. 

I. 
I WILL be quiet and talk with you, 
And reason why you are wrong. 
You wanted my love — is that much 

true ? 
And so I did love, so I do : 
What has come of it all along? 



I took you — how could I otherwise ? 

For a world to me, and more ; 
For all, love greatens and glorifies 
Till God's a -glow, to the loving 
eyes. 

In what was mere earth before. 



174 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE. 



Yes, earth — yes, mere ignoble eaxth ! 

Now do I misstate, mistake ? 
Do I wrong jour weakness and call 

it worth ? 
Expect all harvest, dread no dearth, 

Seal my sense up for your sake ? 



O Lore, Love, no, Love ! not so, in- 
deed 
You were just weak earth, I knew : 
With much in you waste, with many 

a weed, 
And plenty of passions run to seed, 
But a little good grain too. 



V. 

And such as you were, I took you for 
mine : 
Did not you find me yours. 
To watch' the olive and wait the 

vine. 
And wonder when rivers of oil and 
wine 
"Would flow, as the Book assures ? 



Well, and if none of these good things 
came, 
What did the failure prove ? 
The man was my whole world, all 

the same. 
With his flowers to praise or his 
weeds to blame. 
And, either or both, to love. 



Yet this turns now to a fault — there ! 
there ! 
That I do love, watch too long, 
And wait too well, and weary and 

wear ; 
And 'tis all an old story, and my de- 
spair 
Fit subject for some new song : 



VIII. 

" How the light, light love, he has 

wings to fly 
At suspicion of a bond : 
My wisdom has bidden your pleasure 

good-by, 



Which will turn up next in a laughing 
eye, 
And why should you look be- 
yond?" 



V. 
ON THE CLIFT. 



I LEAXED on the turf, 

I looked at a rock 

Left dry by the surf ; 

For the tiirf , to call it grass were to 

mock : 
Dead to the roots, so deep was done 
The work of the summer sun. 

II. 
And the rock lay flat 
As an anvil's face : 
No iron like that ! 
Baked dry ; of a weed, of a shell, no 

trace : 
Sunshine outside, but ice at the core. 
Death's altar bv the lone shore. 



On the turf, sprang gay 

With his films of blue. 

No cricket, I'll say, 

But a warhorse, barded and chan- 

froned too. 
The gift of a quixote-mage to his 

knight. 
Real fairy, with wings all right. 

IV. 

On the rock, they scorch 

Like a drop of fire 

From a brandished torch, 

Fall two red fans of a butterfly : 

No turf, no rock, — in tlieir ugly stead, 

See, wonderful blue and red ' 



Is it not so 

With the minds of men ? 

The level and low, 

The burnt and bare, in themselves ; 

but then 
With such a blue and red grace, not 

theirs. 
Love settling unawares ! 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE. 



175 



VI. 

READING A BOOK, UNDER THE 
CLLFF. 



" Still ailing, Wind ? Wilt be ap- 
peased or no ? 
Which needs tlie other's office, thou 
or I? 
Dost want to be disburthened of a 
woe, 
And can, in trutli, my voice untie 
Its links, and let it go ? 



"Art thou a dumb, wronged thing 
that would be righted. 
Intrusting thus thy cause to me ? 
Forbear ! 
No tongue can mend such pleadings ; 
faith, requited 
With falsehood, — love, at last aware 
Of scorn, — hoijes, early blighted, — 



" We have them ; but I know not any 
tone 
So fit as thine to falter forth a sor- 
row : 
Dost think men would go mad with- 
out a moan. 
If they knew any way to borrow 
A pathos like thy own ? 



iv. 

" Which sigh wouldst mock, of all the 
sighs ? The one 
So long escaping from lips starved 
and blue. 
That lasts while on her pallet-bed the 
nun 
Stretches her length ; her foot 
comes through 
The straw she shivers on ; 



" You had not thought she was so 
tall : and spent. 
Her shrunk lids open, her lean fin- 
gers shut 
Close, close, their sharp and livid nails 
indent 
The clammy palm ; then all is 
nmte : 
That way, the spirit went. 



" Or wouldst thou rather that I un- 
derstand 
Thy will to help me ? — like the dog 
I found 
Once, pacing sad this solitary strand, 
Who would not take my food, poor 
hound. 
But whined, and licked my hand." 



All this, and more, comes from som« 
young man's pride 
Of power to see, — in failure and 
mistake. 
Relinquishment, disgrace, on every 
side, — 
Merely examples for his sake, 
Helps to his path untried : 

VIII. 

Instances he must — simply recog- 
nize? 
Oh, more than so ! — must, with a 
learner's zeal. 
Make doubly prominent, twice em- 
phasize, 
By added touches that reveal 
The god in babe's disguise. 

IX. 

Oh, he knows what defeat means, 
and the rest ! 
Himself the undefeated that shall 
be: 
Failure, disgrace, he flings them you 
to test, — 
His triumph, in eternity 
Too plainly manifest \ 



Whence, judge if he learn forthwith 
what the wind 
Means in its moaning — by the 
happy prompt 
Instinctive way of youth, I mean ; 
for kind 
Calm years, exacting their accompt 
Of pain, mature the mind : 



And some midsummer morning, at 
the lull 
Just about daybreak, as he looks 
across 

A sparkling foreign country, wonder- 
ful 



176 



JAMES LEE'S WIFE. 



To the sea's edge for gloom and 
gloss, 
Next minute must annul, — 



Then, when the wind begins among 
the vines. 
So low, so low, what shall it say 
biit this ? 
*' Here is the change beginning, here 
the lines 
Circumscribe beauty, set to bliss 
The limit time assigns." 



XIII. 

Nothing can be as it has been be- 
fore ; 
Better, so call it, only not the same. 
To draw one beauty into our hearts' 
core, 
And keep it changeless ! such our 
claim ; 
So answered, — Never more ! 

XIV, 

Simple ? Why this is the old woe o' 
the world ; 
Tune, to whose rise and fall we 
live and die. 
Rise with it, then ! Rejoice that man 
is hurled 
From change to change unceas- 
ingly, 
His soul's wings never furled ! 



That's a new question ; still replies 
the fact, 
Nothing endures : the wind moans, 
saying so ; 
We moan in acquiescence : there's 
life's pact, 
Perhaps probation — do / know ? 
God does : endure his act ! 



Only, for man, how bitter not to 
grave 
On his soul's hands' palms one fair 
good wise thing 
Just as he grasped it ! For himself, 
death's wave ; 
While time first washes — ah, the 
sting ! — 
O'er all he'd sink to save. 



VII. 

AMONG THE ROCKS. 

I. 
Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown 
old earth. 
This autumn morning ! How he 
sets h:s bones 
To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out 

knees and feet 
For the ripple to run over in its 
mirth ; 
Listening the while, where on the 
heap of stones 
The white breast of the sea-lark twit- 
ters sweet. 



That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, 

true ; 
Such is life's trial, as old earth 

smiles and knows. 
If you loved only what were worth 

your love, 
Love were clear gain, and wholly 

well for you : 
Make the low nature better by your 

throes ! 
Give earth yourself, go up for gain 

above ! 



VIII. 

BESIDE THE DRAWING-BOARD. 



"As like as a Hand to another 
Hand ! " 
Whoever said that foolish thing. 
Could not have studied to understaml 
The counsels of God in fashioning. 
Out of the infinite love of his heart, 
This Hand, whose beauty I praise, 

apart 
From the world of wonder left to 

praise. 
If I tried to learn the other ways 
Of love, in its skill, or love, in its 
power. 
"As like as a Hand to another 

Hand : '' 
Who said that, never took his stand, 
Found and followed, like me, an hour, 



JAMES LEirS WIFE. 



177 



The beauty in this, — how free, how 

tine 
To fear, almost, — of the limit-line ! 
As I looked at this, and learned and 
drew, 
Drew and learned, and looked 
again, 
While fast the happy minutes Hew, 
Its beauty mounted into my brain, 
And a fancy seized me : I was fain 
To efface my work, begin anew, 
Kiss what before I only drew ; 
Ay, laying the red chalk 'twixt my 
lips, 
"With soul to help if the mere lips 

failed, 
I kissed all right where the draw- 
ing ailed. 
Kissed fast the grace that somehow 

slips 
Still from one's soulless finger-tips. 



'Tis a clay cast, the perfect thing, 
From Hand live once, dead long 
ago: 
Princess-like it wears the ring 

To fancy's eye, by which we know 
That here at length a master found 
His match, a proud lone soul its 
mate. 
As soaring genius sank to ground 

And pencil could not emulate 
The beauty in this, — how free, how 

fine 
To fear almost ! — of the limit-line. 
Long ago the god, like me 
The worm, learned, each in our de- 
gree : 
Looked and loved, learned and drew, 
Drew and learned and loved again. 
While fast the hajijiy uiinutcs tiew. 

Till beauty mounted into his bi-ain 
And on the finger which outvied 
His art he jjlaced the ring that's 
there. 
Still by fancy's eye descried. 

In token of a marriage rare : 
For him on earth, his art's despair, 
For him in heaven, his soul's fit 
bride. 



III. 

Little girl with the jioor coarse hand 
I turned from to a cold clay cast — 

I have my lesson, understand 
The worth of tiesh and blood at 
last! 



Notliing but beauty in a Hand ? 
Because he could not change the 

hue. 
Mend the lines and make them true 
To this which met his soul's de- 
mand, — 
Would Da Vinci turn from you? 
I hear him laugh my woes to scorn — 
" The fool forsooth is all forlorn 
Because the beauty, she thinks best, 
Lived long ago or was never born, — 
Because no beauty bears the test 
In this rough peasant Hand ! Con- 
fessed 
' Art is null and study void ! ' 
So sayest thou ? So said not I, 
Who threw the faulty pencil by. 
And years instead of hours employed, 
Learning the veritable use 
Of flesh and bone and nerve beneath 
Lines and hue of the outer sheath, 
If haply I might reproduce 
One motive of the mechanism. 
Flesh and bone and nerve that make 
The poorest coarsest human hand 
An object worthy to be scanned 
A whole life long for their sole sake. 
Shall earth and the cram2ied moment- 
space 
Yield the heavenly crowning grace ? 
Now the parts and then the whole I 
Who art thou, with stinted soul 
And stunted body, thus to cry 
'I love, — shall that be life's strait 

dole ? 
I must live beloved or die ! ' 
This peasant hand that spins the wool 
And bakes the bread, wliy lives it on, 
Poor and coarse with beauty gone, — 
What use survives the beauty ? 
Fool ! " 

Go, little girl with the poor coarse 

hand ! 
I have my lesson, shall understand. 



IX. 

ON DECK. 



There is nothing tf) remember in rae, 
Nothing T ever said with a grace. 

Nothing I did that you care to see, 
Notliing I was that deserves a place 

In your mind, now I leave you, set 
you free. 



178 



RESPECTABILITY. 



Conceded ! In turn, concede to me, 
Such things have been as a mutual 
flame. 
Your soul's locked fast ; uut, love for 
a key, 
You might let it loose, till I grew 
the same 
In your eyes, as in mine you stand : 
strange plea ! 



For then, then, what would it matter 
to me 
That I was the harsh, ill-favored 
one ? 

"We both should be like as pea and 
pea ; 

. It was ever so since the world be- 
gun : 

So, let me proceed with my reverie. 



How strange it were if you had all 
me, 
As I have all you in my heart and 
brain, 
You, whose least word brought gloom 
or glee, 
"Who never lifted the hand in vain 
Will hold mine yet, from over the sea ! 



Strange, if a face, when you thought 
of me. 
Rose like your own face present 
now, 

"VTith eyes as dear in their due de- 
gree. 
Much such a mouth, and as bright a 
brow, 

Till you .saw vourself, while you cried 
" 'Tis She ! " 



VI. 

Well, you may, you must, set down to 
me 
Love that was life, life that was 
love ; 

A tenure of breath at your lips' de- 
cree, 
A passion to stand as your thoughts 
approve, 

A rapture to fall where j'our foot 
might be. 



But did one touch of such love for me 
Come in a word or a look of yours, 
Whose words and looks will, circling, 
flee 
Round me and round while life en- 
dures, — 
Could I fancy "As I feel, thus feels 
He;" 

VIII. 

Why, fade you might to a thing like 

me, 
And your hair grow these coarse 

hanks of hair. 
Your skin, this bark of a gnarled 

tree, — 
You might turn myself ! — should 

I know or care, " 
When I should be dead of joy, James 

Lee? 



RESPECTABILITY. 



Dkar, had the world in its caprice 
Deigned to proclaim "I know you 

both, 
Have recognized your plighted 
troth, 
Am sjjonsor for you : live in 

peace ! " — 
How many precious months and years 
Of youth had passed, that speed so 

fast, 
Befoi'e we found it out at last, 
The world, and what it fears ? 



How much of priceless life were spent 
With men that every virtue decks, 
And women models of their sex, 

Society's true ornament, — 

Ere we dared wander, nights like 
this. 
Through wind and rain, and watch 

the Seine, 
And feel the Boulevart break again 

To warmth and light and bliss ? 



I know ! the world proscribes not 
love ; 
Allows my finger to caress 
Your lips' contour and tlowniness. 

Provided it supply a glove. 



D/S ALITER visum ; OR, LE BYRON BE NOS JOURS. 179 



The world's good word! — the Insti- 
tute ! 
Gnizot receives Montaleinbert ! 
Eh ? Down the court three lamp- 
ions tlare : 
Put forward your best foot ! 



DIS ALITER VISUM; OR, LE 
BYRON DE NOS JOURS. 



Stop, let me have the truth of that ! 

Is that all true ? I say, the day 
Ten years ago when both of us 

Met on a morning, friends — as thus 
We meet this evening, friends or 
what ? — 

II. 
Did you — because I took your arm 
And sillily smiled, " A mass of 
brass 
That sea looks, blazing underneath ! " 
While up the cliff-road edged with 
heath. 
We took the turns nor came to 
harm — 



Did you consider " Now makes twice 
That I have seen her, walked and 
talked 
With this poor pretty thoughtful 
thing, 
Whose worth I weigh : she tries to 
sing ; 
Draws, hopes in time the eye grows 
nice ; 

IV. 

" Reads verse and thinks she under- 
stands ; 
Loves all, at any rate, that's great. 
Good, beautiful ; but much as we 
Down at the bath-house love the 
sea, 
Who breathe its salt and bruise its 
sands : 



"While ... do but follow the fish- 
ing-gull 
That flaps and floats from wave to 
cave I 



There's the sea-lover, fair my friend ! 
What then ? Be patient, mark and 
mend ! 
Had you the making of your skull ? " 



And did you, when we faced the 
cliurch 
With spire and sad slate roof, aloof 
From human fellowship so far. 

Where a few graveyard crosses are, 
And garlands for the swallows' 
perch, — 



Did you determine, as we stepped 
O'er the lone stone fence, " Let me 
get 
Her for myself, and what's the earth 
With all its art, verse, music, 
worth — 
Compared with love, found, gained, 
and kept ? 



" Schumann's our music-maker now ; 
Has his march-movement youth and 
mouth ? 
Ingres's the modern man that paints ; 
Which will lean on me, of his 
saints ? 
Heine for songs ; for kisses, how ? " 



And did you, when we entered, 
reached 
The votive frigate, soft aloft 
Riding on air this hundred years, 
Safe-smiling at old hopes and 
fears, — 
Did you draw profit while she 
preached ? 



Resolving, " Fools we wise men grow f 
Yes, I could easily blurt out curt 

Some question that might find reply 
As prompt in her stopped lips, 
dropped eye 

And rush of red to cheek and brow : 



" Thus were a match made, sure and 
fast, 
'Mid the blue weed-flowers round 
the mound 



180 



n/S ALITER visum; or, LE BYRON DE NOS JOURS. 



Where, issuing, we shall stand and 
stay 
For one more look at haths and bay, 
Sands, sea-gulls, and the old church 
last — 



" A match 'twixt me, bent, wigged, 
and lamed. 
Famous, however, for verse and 
worse. 
Sure of the Fortieth spare Arm-chair 
"When gout and glory seat me there. 
So, one whose love-freaks pass un- 
blamed, — 



" And this young beauty, round and 
sound 
As a mountain-apple, youth and 
truth 
With loves and doves, at all events 

With money in the Three per Cents ; 
Whose choice of me would seem pro- 
found : — 



" She might take me as I take her. 

Perfect the hour would pass, alas ! 
Climb high, love high, what matter ? 
Still, 
Feet, feelings, must descend the 
hill: 
An hour's perfection can't recur. 



" Then follows Paris and full time 
For both to reason : ' Thus with 
us,' 
She'll sigh, ' Thus girls give body and 
soul 
At first word, think they gain the 
goal, 
When 'tis the starting-place they 
climb ! 



'' ' My friend makes verse and gets 
renown ; 
Have they all fifty years, his peers ? 
He knows the world,' firm, quiet, and 
gay; 
Boys will become as much one 
day : 
They're "fools ; he cheats, with beard 
less brown. 



" ' For boys say, Love me or I die .' 

He did not say. The truth is, youth 
I want, who am old and knoio too much ; 
I'd catch youth: lend me sight and 
touch ! 
Drop heart's blood where life's icheels 
grate dry ! ' 

XVIII. 

" While I should make rejoinder" — 
(then 
It was, no doubt, you ceased that 
least 
Light pressure of my arm in yours) 
" ' I can conceive of cheaper cures 
For a y awning-fit o'er books and 
men. 



" ' What ? All I am, was, and might 
be. 
All , books taught, art brought, life's 
whole strife. 
Painful results since precious, just 
Were fitly exchanged, in wise dis- 
gust, 
For two cheeks freshened by youth 
and sea ? 



"'AH for a nosegay! — what came 
first ; 
With fields in flower, untried each 
side ; 
I rally, need my books and men, 

Aud find a nosegay : ' drop it, then, 
No match yet made for best or 
worst ! " 

XXI. 

That ended me. You judged the porch 
We left by, Norman ; took our look 

At sea and sky ; wondered so few 
Find out the place for air and view • 

Remarked the sun began to scorch ; 

XXII. 

Descended, soon regained the baths, 
And then, good-by ! Years ten 
since then : 
Ten years ! We meet : you tell me, 
now. 
By a window-seat for that clifif- 
brow, 
On carpet - stripes for those sand- 
paths. 



CONFESSIONS. 



181 



XXIII. 

Now I may speak : you fool, for all 
Your lore ! Who made things plain 
in vain ? 
What was the sea for ? What, the 
gray 
Sad church, that solitary day. 
Crosses and graves and swallows' 
call? 

XXIV. 

Was there naught better than to en- 
joy ? 
No feat which, done, would make 
time break. 
And let us pent-up creatures through 

Into eternity, our due ? 
No forcing earth teach heaven's em- 
ploy? 

XXV. 

No wise beginning, here and now, 
What cannot grow complete (earth's 
feat) 
And heaven must finish, there and 
then ? 
No tasting earth's true food for 
men. 
Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet ? 



xxvr. 

No grasping at love, gaining a share 
O' the sole spark from God's life at 
strife 
With death, so, sure of range above 

The limits here ? For us and love, 
Failure ; but, when God fails, de- 
spair. 

xxvii. 
This you call wisdom ? Thus you 
add 
Good unto good again, in vain ? 
You loved, with body worn and 
weak ; 
I loved, with faculties to seek : 
Were both loves worthless since ill- 
clad? 

XXVIII. 

J.et the mere .star- fish in his vault 
Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed, 

Ros(!-jac'ynth to the finger-tips : 
He, whole in body and soul, out- 
strips 

Man, found with either in default. 



XXIX. 

But what's whole, can increase no 

more, 
Is dwarfed and dies, since here's its 

sphere. 
The Devil laughed at you in his 

sleeve ! 
You knew not? That I well be 

lieve ; 
Or you had saved two souls : nay 

four. 



For Stephanie sprained last night hei 
wrist, 
Ankle or something. " Pooh," cry 
you? 
At any rate she danced, all say. 

Vilely: her vogue has had its day. 
Here comes my husband from his 
whist. 



CONFESSIONS. 



What is he buzzing in my ears ? 

"Now that I come to die, 
Do I view the world as a vale of 
tears ? " 

Ah , reverend sir, not I ! 



What I viewed there once, what I 
view again 
Where the physic bottles stand 
On the table's edge, — is a suburb 
lane. 
With a wall to my bedside hand. 

in. 

That lane sloped, much as the bottles 
do. 
From a house you could descry 
O'er the garden-wall : is the curtain 
blue 
Or green to a healthy eye ? 



To mine, it serves for the old June 
weather 
Blue above lane and wall ; 
And that farthest bottle labelled 
"Ether" 
Is the house o'er-topping all. 



182 



THE HOUSEHOLDER. 



At a terrace, somewhat near the stoi> 
per, 

There watched for me, one June, 
A girl : I know, sir, it's improper. 

My poor mind's out of tune. 



Only, there was a way . . . you crept 
Close by the side, to dodge 

Eyes in the house, two ej'es except : 
They styled their house " The 
Lodge." 



What right had a lounger up their 
lane? 
But, by creeping very close, 
With the good wall's help, — their 
eyes might strain 
And stretch themselves to Oes, 



Yet never catch her and me together. 
As she left the attic, there. 

By the rim of the bottle labelled 
"Ether," 
And stole from stair to stair. 



And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. 

Alas, 
We loved, sir — used to meet : 
How sad and bad and mad it was — 
But then, how it was sweet ! 



THE HOUSEHOLDER. 



Savage I was sitting in my house, 
late, lone : 
- Dreary, weary with the long day's 
'^ work : 

Head of me, heart of me, stupid as a 
stone : 
Tongue-tied now, now blasphem- 
ing like a Turk ; 
When, in a moment, just a knock, 
call, cry, 
Half a pang and all a rapture, there 
again were we 1 — 



" What, and is it really you again ? " 
quoth I : 
" I again, what else did you ex- 
pect?" quoth She. 



" Never mind, hie away from this old 
house — 
Every crumbling brick embrowned 
with sin and shame ! 
Quick, in its corners ere certain 
shapes arouse ! 
Let them — every devil of the 
night — lay claim. 
Make and mend, or rap and rend, for 
me ! Good-by ! 
God be their guard from disturbance 
at their glee. 
Till, crash, comes down the carcass in 
a heap ! " quoth I : 
" Nay, but there's a decency re- 
quired ! ' ' quoth She. 



" Ah, but if you knew how time has 
dragged, days, nights ! 
All the neighbor-talk with man and 
maid — such men I 
All the fuss and trouble of street- 
sounds, window-sights : 
All the worry of flapping door and 
echoing i-oof ; and then. 
All the fancies , . , Who were they 
had leave, dared try 
Darker arts that almost struck de- 
spair in me ? 
If you knew but how I dwelt down 
here ! "quoth I : 
" And wtis I so better off up there ? " 
quoth She. 

rv. 
" Help and get it over ! Re-united to 
his loife 
(How draw up the paper lets th* 
parish-people know !) 
Lies M. or N., departed from this life, 
Day the this or that, hionth and year 
the so and so. 
What i' the way of final flourish ? 
Prose, verse ? Try ! 
Affliction sore, long time he bore, or, 
what is it to be ? 
Till God did please to grant him case. 
Do end ! " quoth I : 
"I end with — Love is all and 
Death is naught ! " quoth She. 



CAVALIER TUNES. 



183 



TRAY. 

Sing me a hero ! Quench my thirst 
Of soul, ye bards ! 

Quoth Bard the first : 
" Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don 
His helm and eke his habergeon "... 
Sir Olaf and his bard ! — 

•'That sin-scathed brow" (quoth 
Bard the second), 

"That eye wide ope as though Fate 
beckoned 

^ly hero to some steep, beneath 

Which precipice smiled tempting 
Death" ... 

You too without your host have reck- 
oned ! 

"A beggar-child" (let's hear this 

third !) 
" Sat on a quay's edge : like a bird 
Sang to herself at careless play, 
And fell into the stream. ' Dismay ! 
Help, you the standers-by ! ' None 

stirred. 

" By-standers reason, think of wives 
And children ere they risk their lives. 
Over the balustrade has bounced 
A mere instinctive dog, and pounced 
Plumb on the prize. ' How well he 
dives ! 

" ' Up he comes with the child, see, 

tight 
In mouth, alive too, clutched from 

quite 
A depth of ten feet — twelve, I bet ! 
Good dog ! What, off again ? There's 

yet 
Another child to save ? All right ! 

" ' How strange we saw no other fall ! 

It's instinct in the animal. 

Good dog ! But he's a long while 
under : 

If he got drowned I should not won- 
der — 

Strong current, that against the wall ! 

" ' Here he comes, holds in mouth 

this time 
— What may the thing be? Well, 

that's prime ! 
Now, did you ever ? Reason reigns 
In man alone, since all Tray's pains 
Have fished — the child's doll from 

the slime ! ' 



" And so, amid the laughter gay. 
Trotted my hero off, — old Tray, — 
Till somebody, prerogatived 
With reason, reasoned : ' Why he 

dived, 
His brain would show us, I should 

say. 

" 'John, go and catch — or, if needs 

be. 
Purchase that animal for me ! 
By vivisection, at expense 
Of half-an-hour and eighteen pence, 
How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll 

see ! ' " 



CAVALIER TUNES. 
I. 

MARCHING ALONG. 



Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King. 

Bidding the crop-headed Parliament 
swing : 

And, pressing a troop unable to stoop 

And see tbe rogues flourish and hon- 
est folk droop, 

Marched them along, fifty-score 
strong. 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this 
song. 



God for King Charles ! Pym and 

such carles 
To the Devil that prompts 'em their 

treasonous paries ! 
Cavaliers, up ! Lips from the cup, 
Hands from the pasty, nor bite take 

nor sup 
Till you're — 
(Chorus) Marching along, fifty-score 
strong. 
Great - hearted gentlemen, 
singing this song. 



Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' 

knell. 
Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young 

Harry as well ! 



184 



CAVALIER TUNES. 



England, good cheer ! Kupert is 

near ! 
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not 
here 
(Chorus) Marchinc/ along, fifty-score 
strong, 
Great - hearted gentlemen, 
singing this song. 



Then, God for King Charles ! Pym 

and his snarls 
To the Devil that pricks on such pes- 
tilent carles ! 
Hold by the right, you double your 

might : 
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for 
the fight, 
(Chorus) March we along, fifty-score 
strong, 
Great - hearted gentlemen, 
singing this song. 



n. 

GIVE A ROUSE. 



I. 

King Charles, and who'll do him 

right now ? 
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight 

now? 
Give a rouse : here's, in hell's despite 

now. 
King Charles ! 



Who gave me the goods that went 

since? 
Who raised me the house that sank 

once ? 
Who helped me to gold I spent since ? 
Who found me in wine you drank 
once? 
(Chorits) King Charles, and who'll 
do him right noio ? 
King Charles, and zcho's 

ripe for fight noio? 
Give a roxise: here's, ni 

hell's despite now. 
King Charles! 



To whom used my boy George quafi 

else, 
By the old fool's side that begot him ? 
For whom did he cheer and laugh else, 
While Noll's damned troopers shot 
him? 
(Chorus) King Charles, and tcho'll 
do him right noic ? 
King Charles, and icho's 

ripe for fight noio ? 
Give a rouse : here's, it 

hell's despite noio, 
King Charles! 



III. 

BOOT AND SADDLE. 



Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 
Rescue my castle before the hot day 
Brightens to blue from its silvery 
gray, 
(Chorus) Boot, saddle, to horse, and 
away ! 



Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd 

say ; 
Many's the friend there, will listen 

and pray, 
" God's luck to gallants that strike up 
the lay — 
(Choi'us) Boot, saddle, to horse, and 
away !" 



Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bav, 
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Round' 

heads' array : 
Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, 
by my fay, 
(Chorus) Boot, saddle, to horse, and 
away? " 



Who ? My wife Gertrude ; that, hon- 
est and gay, 
Laughs when you talk of surrender- 
ing, " Nay ! 
I've better counsellors ; what coun- 
sel they ? 
(Chorus) Boot, saddle, to horse, and 
away ! " 



AFTER. 



185 



BEFORE. 



Let them fight it out, friend ! things 

liave gone too far. 
God must judge the couple : leave 

then) as they are 
— Wlrlchever one's the guiltless, to 

liis glory. 
And whichever one the guilt's with, 

to my story ! 



"Why, you would not bid men, sunk 

in such a slough, 
Strike no arm out farther, stick and 

stink as now. 
Leaving right and wrong to settle the 

embroilment. 
Heaven with snaky hell, in torture 

and entoilment ? 



Who's the culprit of them ? How 

must he conceive 
God — the queen he caps to, laughing 

in his sleeve, 
" 'Tis but decent to profess one's self 

beneath her : 
Still, one must not be too much in 

earnest, either ! " 

IV. 

Better sin the whole sin, sure that 

God observes ; 
Then go live his life out ! Life will 

try his nerves, 
"When the sky, which noticed all, 

makes no disclosure, 
And the earth keeps up her terrible 

composure. 



Let him pace at pleasure, past the 

walls of rose. 
Pluck their fruits when grape-trees 

graze him as he goes ! 
For he 'gins to guess the purpose of 

the garden. 
With the sly mute thing, beside there, 

for a warden. 



What's the leopard-dog-thing, con- 
stant at his side, 

A leer and lie in every eye of its ob- 
sequious hide ? 



When will come an end to all the 

mock obeisance. 
And the price appear that pays for 

the misfeasance ? 



So much for the culprit. Who's the 

martyred man ? 
Let him bear one stroke more, for be 

sure he can '. 
He that strove thus evil's lump with 

good to leaven. 
Let him give his blood at last and get 

his heaven ! 



All or nothing, stake it ! Trusts he 
God or no ? 

Thus far and no farther ? farther ? be 
it so ! 

Now, enough of your chicane of pru- 
dent pauses, 

Sage provisos, sub-tntents, and saving- 
clauses ! 

IX. 

Ah, " forgive " you bid him ? While 

God's champion lives. 
Wrong shall be resisted : dead, why, 

he forgives. 
But you must not end my friend ere 

you begin him : 
Evil stands not crowned on earth, 

while breath is in him. 



Once more — Will the wronger, at 
this last of all. 

Dare to say, " I did wrong," rising in 
his fall ? 

No ? — Let go, then ! Both the fight- 
ers to their places ! 

While I count thi-ee, step you back as 
many paces ! 



AFTER. 



Take the cloak from his face, and at 
first 
Let the corpse do its worst ! 

How he lies in his rights of a man. 

Death has done all death can. 
And, absorbed in the new life he 
leads. 

He recks not, he heeds 



186 



HERVE RIEL. 



Nor his wrong nor my vengeance : 
both strike 
On his senses alike, 
And are lost in the solemn and 
strange 
Surprise of the change. 

Ha, what avails death to erase 

His offence, my disgrace ? 
1 wouldwe were boys as of old 

In the field, by the fold : 
His outrage, God's patience, man's 
scorn 

"Were so easily borne ! 

I stand here now, he lies in his place : 
Cover the face ! 



HERVE RIEL. 



Ok the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen 
hundred ninety-two. 
Did the English fight the French, — 
woe to France ! 

And, the thirty-first of May, helter- 
skelter through the blue. 

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises 
a shoal of sharks pursue. 
Came crowding ship on ship to St. 
Malo on the Ranee, 

"With the English fleet in view. 



'Twas the squadron that escaped, with 
the victor in full chase ; 
First and foremost of the drove, in 
his great ship, Damfreville ; 
Close on him fled, great and small, 
Twenty-two good ships in all ; 
And they signalled to the place 
" Help the winners of a race ! 
Get us guidance, give us harbor, 
take us quick — or, quicker still, 
Here's the English can and will ! " 



Then tlie pilots of the place put out 
brisk and leapt on board ; 
' "Why, what hope or chance have 
ships like these to pass?" 
laughed they : 
' Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all 
the passage scarred and scored, 



Shall the ' Formidable ' here v^ith hei 
twelve and eighty guns 
Think to make the river-mouth by 
the single narrow way, 
Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a 
craft of twenty tons, 
And with flow at full beside? 
Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide. 
Reach the mooring ? Rather say, 
While rock stands or water runs, 
Not a ship will leave the bay ! " 



Then was called £< council straight. 

Brief and bitter the debate : 

" Here's the English at our heels ; 

would you have them take in 

tow 
All that's left us of the fleet, linked 

together stern and bow, 
For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 
Better run the ships aground ! " 

(Ended Damfreville liis speech.) 
" Not a minute more to wait ! 
Let the Captains all and each 
Shove ashore, then blow up, burn 

the vessels on the beach ! 
France must undergo her fate. 



" Give the word ! ' But no such 

word 
"Was ever spoke or heard ; 
For up stood, for out stepped, for in 
struck amid all these 
— A Captain ? A Lieutenant ? A 
Mate — first, second, third ? 
No such man of mark, and meet 
"With his betters to compete ! 
But a simple Breton sailor pressed 
by Tourville for the fleet, 
A poor coasting-pilot he, Herve Riel 
the Croisickese. 



And, " "What mockery or malice have 
we here ? " cries Herve Riel : 
" Are you mad, you Malouins ? Are 
_ you cowards, fools, or rogues ? 
Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me 

who took the soundings, tell 
On my fingers every bank, every shal- 
low, every swell 
'Twixt the offing here and Greve 
wliere the river disembogues ? 
Are you bought by English gold ? Is 
it love the lying's for ? 
Morn and eve, night and day, 



HERVli KIEL. 



187 



Have I piloted your bay, 
Entered free and anchored fast at the 
foot of Solidor. 
Burn the fleet and ruin France ? 
That were worse than fifty 
Hogues ! 
Sirs, they know I speak the truth ! 
Sirs, believe me there's a way ! 
Only let me l^ad the line, 
Have the biggest ship to steer, 
Get this ' Formidable ' clear, 
Make the others follow mine. 
And I lead them, most and least, by a 
passage I know well, 
Right to Solidor past Greve, 
And there lay them safe and 
sound ; 
And if one ship misbehave, 
— Keel so much as grate the 
ground, 
Why, I've nothing but my life, — 
here's my head ! " cries Herve' 
Riel. 



Not a minute more to wait. 

" Steer us in, then, small and great ! 

Take the helm, lead the line, save 
the squadron ! " cried its chief. 
Captains, give the sailor place ! 

He is Admiral, in brief. 
Still the north-wind, by God's grace ! 
See the noble fellow's face 
As the big ship, with a bound, 
Clears the entry like a hound, 
Keeps the passage as its inch of way 
were the wide sea'fT profound ! 

See, safe through shoal and rock. 

How they follow in a fiock, 
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a 
keel that grates the ground. 

Not a spar that coines to grief ! 
The peril, see, is past, 
All are harbored tc the last, 
Aud just as Herv6 Riel hollas " An- 
chor ! " — sure as fate. 
Up the English come, too late ! 

VIII. 

•^io, the storm subsides to calm : 
They see the green trees wave 
On the heights o'erlooking Greve. 

Hearts that bled are stanched with 
balm. 

" Just our rajiture to enhance. 
Let the English rake the bay, 

Gnash their teetli and glare askance 
Ks they cannonade away ! 



'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant rid- 
ing on the Ranee ! " 
How hojie succeeds despair on each 

Captain's countenance ! 
Out burst all with one accord, 
" This is Paradise for Hell ! 
Let France, let France's King 
Thank the man that did the 
thing ! " 
What a shout, and all one word, 

"Herve Riel ! " 
As he stepped in front once mora, 
Not a symptom of surprise 
In the frank blue Breton eyes. 
Just the same man as before. 



Then said Damfreville,*" My friend, 
I must speak out at the end. 

Though I tind the speaking hard. 
Praise is deeper than the lips : 
You have saved the King his ships, 

You must name your own reward. 
'Faith, our sun was near eclipse ! 
Demand whate'er you will, 
France remains your debtor still. 
Ask to heart's content and have ! or 
my name's not Damfreville." 



Then a beam of fun outbroke 
On the bearded mouth that spoke. 
As the honest heart laughed through 
Those frank eyes of Breton blue : 
" Since I needs must say my say, 

Since on board the duty's done. 

And from Malo Roads to Croisic 
Point, what is it but a run ? — 
Since 'tis ask and have, I may — 

Since the others go ashore — 
Come ! A good whole holiday ! 

Leave to go and see my wife, whoa 
I call the Belle Aurora ! " 
That he asked and that he got, — 
nothing more. 



Name and deed alike are lost : 
Not a pillar nor a post 
In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as 

it befell ; 
Not a head in white and black 
On a single tishing-smack. 
In memory of the man but for whom 

had gone to wrack 
All that France saved from the 

fight whence England bore the 

bell. 



188 IN A BALCONY. 



Go to Paris : rank on rank 
Search the heroes riiuig pell-mell 

On the Louvre, face and flank ! 
You shall look long enough ere you 
come to Herve Rial. 



So, for better and for worse, 

Herve Riel, accept my verse 1 

In my verse, Herve Kiel, do thou once 

more 
Save the squadron, honor France, 

love thy wife the Belle Aurore ! 



IN A BALCONY. 

CoNSTANCB and Norbert. 



Nor. Now ! 

Con. Not now ! 

Nor. Give me them again, those hands- 

Put them upon my forehead, how it throbs ! 
Press them before my eyes, the fire comes through 1 
You cruellest, you dearest in the world. 
Let me ! The Queen nuist grant whate'er I ask — 
How can I gain you and not ask the Queen ? 
There she stays waiting for me, here stand you ; 
Some time or other this was to be asked , 
Now is the one time — what I ask, I gain : 
Let me ask now, Love ! 

Con. Do, and ruin us ! 

Nor. Let it be now, Love ! All my soul breaks forth. 
How I do love you ! Give my love its way ! 
A man can have but one life and one death, 
One heaven, one hell. Let mo fulfil my fate — 
Grant me my heaven now ! Let me know you mine, 
Prove you mine, write my name upon your brow, 
Hold you and have you, and then die away. 
If God please, with completion in my soul 1 

Con. I am not yours tlien ? How content this man I 
I am not his — who change into himself, 
Have passed into his heart and beat its beats, 
"Who give my hands to him, my eyes, my hair, 
Give all that was of me away to him — 
So well, that now, my spirit turned his own, 
Takes part with him against the woman here, 
Bids him not stumble at so mere a straw 
As caring that the world be cognizant 
How he loves her and how she worships him. 
You have this woman, not as yet that world. 
Go on, I bid, nor stop to care for me 
By saving what I cease to care about. 
The courtly name and pride of circumstance — 
The name you'll pick up and be cumbered with 
Just for the poor parade's sake, nothiiig more ; 
Just that the world may slip from under you — 
Just that the world may cry " So nuich for him — 
The man predestined Ut the heap of crowns : 
There goes his chance of winning one, at least ! " 

Nor. The world ! 

Con. You love it ! Love me quite as well, 

And see if I shall pray for this in vain I 
Why must you ponder what it knows or thinks ? 



TN A BALCONY. 189 



Nor. You pray for — what, in vain ? 

Con. Oh my heart's heart, 

How I do love yon, Norbert ! That is right : 
Bnt listen, or I take my hands away ! 
Yon say, " Let it be now : " yon wonld go now 
And tell tlie Qneen, perhaps six stei)s from ns. 
You love me — so yon do, thank God ! 

Nor. Thank God ! 

Con. Yes, Norbert, — but you fain wonld tell your love, 
And, what succeeds the telling, ask of her 
My hand. Now take this rose and look at it, 
Listening to me. You are tlie minister, 
The Queen's first favorite, nor without a cause. 
To-night completes your wonderful year's-work 
(This palace-feast is held to c(;lebrate) 
Made memorabh; by her life's success. 
The jnnction of two crowns, on her sole head, 
Her lionse had only dreamed of anciently : 
That this mere dream is grown a stable truth. 
To-night's feast makes authentic. Whose the praise? 
"Whose genius, patience, energy, achieved 
What, turned the many heails and broke the hearts ? 
Yon are the fate, your minute's in the heaven. 
Next comes the Qnecm's turn. " Name your own reward I '■ 
With leave to clinch the past, chain the to-come, 
Put out an arm and touch and take the sun 
And fi.x it ever full-faced on your earth, 
Possess yourself supremely of her life, — 
You choose the single thing she will not grant ; 
Nay, very declaration of which choice 
Will turn the scale and neutralize your work : 
At best she will forgive yon, if she can. 
You think I'll let you choose — her cousin's hand ? 

Nov. Wait. First, do you retain your old belief 
The Queen is generous, — nay, is just ? 

Co)i. There, there, 

So men make women love them, while they know 
No more of women's hearts than . . . look you here, 
Yon that arc just and generous beside, 
Make it your own cast; ! For example now, 
I'll say — I let you Iviss mo, hold my hands — 
Why ? do you know why? I'll instruct yon, then — 
The kiss, because yon have a name at court. 
This hand and this, that yon may shut in each 
A jewel, if you please to pick up such. 
That's horrible ? Apply it to the Queen — 
Snppos(^ I am the (Jnecn to whom yon speak. 
" I was ;i nameless man ; you n(!eded me : 
Why did I proffcn- you my aid ? there stood 
A certain pretty cousin at your side. 
Why did I make such common cause with you? 
Access to her had not been easy else. 
Yon give my labors lnu'c abundant praise ? 
'Faith, labor, which slu; ov(u-looked, grew play. 
How shall your gratitude di.icharge itself ? 
Give me her hand ! " 

Ndv. And still I urge the same. 

Is the Queen just? just — generous or no ! 

Con. Yes, just. You love a rose ; uo harm in that : 



190 TN A BALCONY. 

But was it for the rose's sake or mine 

You put it in your bosom ? mine, you said — 

Then, mine you still must say or else be false. 

You told the Queen you served her for herself ; 

If so, to serve her was to serve yourself, 

She thinks, for all j'our un))elieving face ! 

I know her. In the ball, six steps from us, 

One sees the twenty pictures ; there's a life 

Better than life, and yet no life at all. 

Conceive her born in such a magic dome, 

Pictures all round her ! why, she sees the world, 

Can recognize its given things and facts, 

The fight of giants or the feast of gods, 

Sages in senate, beauties at the bath, 

Chases and battles, the whole earth's display, 

Landscape and sea-piece, down to flowers and fruit- 

And who shall question that she knows them all, 

In better semblance than the things outside ? 

Yet bring into the silent gallery 

Some live thing to contrast in breath and blood, 

Some lion, with the painted lion there — 

You think she'll understand composedly? 

— Say, "That's his fellow in the hunting-piece 

Yonder, I've turned to praise a hundred times ? " 

Not so. Her knowledge of our actual earth. 

Its hopes and fears, concerns and sympathies. 

Must be too far, too mediate, too unreal. 

The real exists for us outside, not her : 

How should it, with that life in these four walls, 

That father and that mother, first to last 

No father and no mother — friends, a heap. 

Lovers, no lack — a husband in due time. 

And every one of them alike a lie ! 

Things painted by a Rubens out of naught 

Into what kindness, friendship, love should be ; 

All better, all more grandiose than life. 

Only no life ; mere cloth and surface-paint, 

Yoii feel, while you admire. How should she feel? 

Yet now that she has stood thus fifty years 

The sole spectator in that gallery, 

You think to bring this warm real struggling love 

In to lier of a sudden, and sujipose 

She'll keep her state untroubled ? Here's the truth : 

She'll apprehend truth's value at a glance, 

Prefer it to the pictured loyalty ? 

You only have to say " So 'men are made. 

For this they act ; the thing has many names. 

But this the right one : and now, Queen, be just ! " 

Your life slips l)ack ; you lose her at the word : 

You do not even for amends gain me. 

He will not understand ! O Norbert, Norbert ! 

Do you not understand ? 

Nor. The Queen's the Queen, 

I am myself — no picture, but alive 
In every nerve and every muscle, here 
At the palace-window o'er the people's street, 
As she in the gallery where the pictures glow : 
The good of life is precious to us botli. 
She cannot love ; what do I want with rule ? 



IN A BALCONY. i9l 



"When first I saw your face a year ago 

I knew my life's good, my soul heard one voice — 

" The woman yonder, there's no use of life 

But just to obtain her ! heap earth's woes in one 

And bear them — make a pile of all eartli's joys 

And spurn them, as they help or help not this ; 

Only, obtain her ! " — how was it to be ? 

I found you were the cousin of the Queen ; 

I must tiien serve the Queen to get to you. 

No other way. Suppose there had been one, 

And I, by saying jirayers to some white star 

With i^romis'e of my body and my soul. 

Might gain you, — should I pray the star or no ? 

Instead, there was the Queen to serve ! I served, 

Helped, did what other servants failed to do. 

Neither she sought nor I declared my end. 

Her good is hers, my recompense be mine, 

I therefore name you as that recompense. 

She dreamed that such a thing could never be ? 

Let her wake now. She thinks there was more cause 

In love of power, high fame, pure loyalty ? 

Perhaps she fancies men wear out their lives 

Chasing such shades. Then, I've a fancy too ; 

I worked because I want you with my soul : 

I therefore ask your hand. Let it be now ! 

Con. Had t not loved you from the very first, 
Were I not yours, could we not steal out thus 
So wickedly, so wildly, and so well, 
You miglit become impatient. What's conceived 
Of us without here, by the folks within ? 
Where are you now ? immersed in cares of state 
Where am I now ? — intent on festal robes — 
We two, embracing under death's spread liand ! 
What was this thought for, what that scruple of yours 
Which broke the council up ? — to bring about 
One minute's meeting in the corridor ! 
And then the sudden sleights, strange secrecies, 
Complots inscrutable, deep telegraphs. 
Long-planned chance-meetings, hazards of a look, 
" Does she know ? does she not know ? saved, or lost ? ' 
A year of this compression's ecstasy 
All goes for nothing ! you would give this up 
For the old way, the open way, the world's. 
His way who beats, and his who sells his wife ! 
What tempts you ? — their notorious happiness, 
That you are ashamed of ours ? The best you'll gain 
Will i)e — the Queen grants all that you require. 
Concedes the cousin, rids herself of you 
And me at once, and gives us ample leave 
To live like our five hundred happy friends 
The world will show us with ofticious hand 
Our chamber-entry and stand sentinel. 
Where we so oft have stolen across its traps ! 
Get the world's warrant, ring the falcons' feet. 
And make it duty to be bold and swift. 
Which long ago was nature. Have it so ! 
We never hawked by rights till flung from fist ? 
Oh, the man's thought ! no woman's such a fool. 

Nor. Yes, the man's thought and my thought, which is more' 



192 IN A BALCONY. 



One made to love you, let the world take note I 

Have I done worthy work ? be love's the praise, 

Though hampered by restrictions, barred against 

By set forms, blinded by forced secrecies ! 

Set free my love, and see what love can do 

Shown in my life — what work will spring from that 1 

The world is used to have its business done 

On other grounds, find great effects produced 

For power's sake, fame's sake, motives in men's mouth. 

So, good : but let my low ground shame their high ! 

Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be true ! 

And love's the truth of mine. Time ]u-ove the rest ! 

I choose to wear you stamped all over me. 

Your name upon my forehead and my breast. 

You, from the sword's blade to the ribbon's edge, 

That men may see, all over, you in me — 

That pale loves may die out of their jiretence 

In face of mine, shames thrown on love fall off. 

Permit this, Constance ! Love has been so long 

Subdued in me, eating me through and through, 

That now 'tis all of me and must have way. 

Think of my work, that chaos of intrigues, 

Those hopes and fears, surprises and delays, 

Tliat long endeavor, earnest, patieiit, slow, 

Trembling at last to its assured result — 

Then think of this revulsion ! I resume 

Life after death (it is no less than life, 

After such long unlovely laboring days), 

And liberate to beauty life's great need 

O' the beautiful, which, while it prompted work, 

Suppressed itself erewhile. This eve's the time, 

This eve intense with yon first trembling star 

We seem to pant and reach ; scarce aught between 

The earth that rises and the heaven that bends ; 

All nature self-abandoned, every tree 

Flung as it will, pursuing its own thoughts 

And fixed so, every flower and every weed. 

No pride, no shame, no victory, no defeat ; 

All under God, each measured by itself. 

These statues round us stand abrupt, distinct. 

The strong in strength, the weak in weakness fixed, 

The Muse forever wedded to her lyre. 

The Nymph to her fawn, the Silence to her rose : 

See God's approval on his universe ! 

Let us do so — aspii-e to live as these 

In harmony with truth, ourselves being true ! 

Take the first way, and let the second come ! 

My fii'st is to possess myself of you ; 

The music sets the march-step — forward, then I 

And there's the Queen, I go to claim you of, 

The world to witness, wonder, and applaud. 

Our flower of life breaks open. No delay ! 

Con. And so shall we be ruined, both of us. 
Norbert, I know her to the skin and bone : 
You do not know her, were not born to it, 
To feel what she can see or cannot see. 
Love, she is generous, —ay, despite your smile, 
Generous as you are : for, in that thin frame 
Pain-twisted, punctmed through and through with cares, 



JN A BALCONY. 19i? 



There lived a lavish soul until it starved 

Debarred all healthy food. Look to the soul — 

Pity that, stoop to that, ere you begin 

(Tlie true luan's-way) on justice and your rights, 

Exactions and acquittance of the past ! 

Begin so — see what justice she will deal ! 

We women hate a debt as men a gift. 

Suppose her some poor keeper of a school 

Whose business is to sit through summer months 

And dole out children leave to go and play, 

Herself superior to such lightness — she 

In the arm-chair's state and pedagogic pomp, 

To the life, the laughter, sun and youth outside : 

We wonder such a face looks black on us? 

I do not bid you wake her tenderness 

(Tliat were vain truly — none is left to wake), 

But, let her think her justice is engaged 

To take the shape of tenderness, and mark 

If she'll not coldly pay its warmest debt ! 

Does she love me, I ask you? not a whit : 

Yet, thinking that her justice was engaged 

To help a kinswoman, she took me up — 

Did more on that bare ground than other loves 

Would do on greater ai-gument. For me, 

I have no equivalent of such cold kind 

To pay her with, but love alone to give 

If I give any thing. I give her love : 

I feel I ought to help her, and I will. 

So, for her sake, as yours, I tell you twice 

That women hate a debt as men a gift. 

If I were you, I could obtain this grace — 

Could lay the whole I did to love's account, 

Nor yet be very false as courtiers go — 

Declaring mj' success was recompense ; 

It would be so, in fact : what were it else ? 

And then, once loose her generosity, — 

Oh, how I see it ! then, were I but you 

To turn it, let it seem to move itself. 

And make it offer what I really take, 

Accepting just, in the jwor cousin's hand, 

Her value as the next thing to the Queen's — 

Since none love Queens directly, none dare that, 

And a thing's shadow or a name's mere echo 

Suffices those who miss the name and thing ! 

You pick up just a ribbon she has worn. 

To keep in proof how near her breath you came. 

Say, I'm so near I seem a piece of her — 

Ask for nie that way — (oh, you understand) 

You'd find the same gift yielded with a grace. 

Which, if you make the least show to extort . . . 

— You'll see ! and when you have ruined both of us, 

Dissertate on the Queen's ingratitude ! 

Nor. Then, if I turn it tiiat way, you consent ? 
'Tis not my way ; I have more hope in truth : 
Still, if you won't have truth — why, this indeed, 
Were scarcely false, as I'd express the sense. 
Will you remain here ? 

Con. O best heart of mine. 

How I have loved you ! then, you take my way ? 



194 IN A BALCONY. 



Are mine as yon have been her minister, 
Work out my thought, give it effect for me. 
Paint plain my poor conceit and make it serve ? 
I owe tliat withered woman every tiling — 
Life, fortune, you, remember ! Taki; my part — 
Help rae to pay her ! Stand upon your rights ? 
You, with lyy rose, my hands, my lieart on you ? 
Your rights are mine — you have no rights but mine. 

Nor. Remain here. How you know me ! 

Con. Ah, but still — 

\He breaks fro'in her: she remains. Dance-music from within 

Enter the Queen. 

Queen. Constance ? She is here as he said. Speak quick t 
Is it so ? Is it true or false ? One woi-d ? 

Con. True. 

Quan. Mercifullest Mother, thanks to thee ! 

Con. Madam ? 

Queen. I love you, Constance, from my soul. 

Now say once more, with any words you will, 
'Tis true, all true, as true as that I speak. 

Con. Why should you doubt it ? 

Queen. Ah, why doubt? why doubt? 

Dear, make me see it ! Do you see it so ? 
None see themselves ; another sees them best. 
You say, " Why doubt it ? " — you see him and me 
It is because the Mother has such grace 
That if we had but faith — wherein we fail — 
Whate'er we yearn for would be granted us ; 
Howbeit we let our whims prescribe despair, 
Our very fancies thwart and cramp our will, 
And so, accepting life, abjure ourselves. 
Constance, I had abjured the hope of love 
And being loved, as truly as you palm 
The hope of seeing Egypt from that plot. 

Con. Heaven ! 

Queen. But it was so, Constance, it was so ! 

Men say — or do men say it ? fancies say — 
" Stop here, your lif(! is set, you are grown old. 
Too late — no love for yon, too late for love — 
Leave love to girls. Be queen : let Constance love I " 
One takes the hint — half meets it like a child. 
Ashamed at any feelings that oppose. 
" O love, true, never think of love again ! 
I am a queen : I rule, not love, indeed." 
So it goes on ; so a face grows like this. 
Hair like this hair, poor arms as lean as these, 
Till, — nay, it doi^s not end so, I thank God I 

Con. I cannot understand — 

Queen. The happier you I 

Constance, I know not how it is with men : 
For women (I am a woman now like you) 
Tliere is no good of life but love — but love ! 
What else looks good, is some shade flung from love ; 
Love gilds it, gives it worth. Be warned by me, 
Never you cheat yourself one instant ! Love, 
Give love, ask only love, and leave the rest 1 
O Constance, how I love you t 



IN A liALCONY. 195 

Con. I lov(! you. 

Quean. I do believe that, all is coiih! throuKli you. 
I took you to my lu^art to kcM'j) it, warm 
WhtMi tli<! last chanf'c of love, sccmkhI (h-ad in ine ; 
I tlioufj;lit your frcsii youtli waruiod my withered heart. 
Oh, I am very old now, am I not? 
Not so ! it is irni^ and it shall Iw. tviw, ! 

Con. T(;ll it mo : hit mi! jiidf^i! if Iruo or false. 

Queen. Ah, but I fear yoii ! you will look at me 
And 8ay, " She's old, slui's f^rown uidovcjiy (juite 
Who ne'er was beauteous : men want tuiauty still." 
Well, so I fe.ared — the curse, ! so I lelt sure ! 

Con. ]}ecalm. And now you feel not sure, you say^ 

Queen, ('onstanee, he came, — tin; coming was not strange- 
Do not I staml and s(ie n)en cf)me and ^o ? 
I turiKMJ a half-look from my pcd(;stal 
Where I fj;row nnirbhi — "one yountj; man the more ! 
He will love soin(! one ; that is nau^^ht to me : 
What would li(i with my marbhi stateliness? " 
YoX tills seemed somewhat worse than lun'etol'ore ; 
Th(5 man more tj;racious, youthful, like a ^od, 
And I still ohha-, with less flesh to chauf^e — 
We two those (Usar extremi^s that lou<; to touch. 
It seemed still hardier when he first began 
Absorbed to lalior at the stat-e-allairs 
Tin; old way for the old (uid — inter(\Ht. 
Oh, to live with a thousand beating hearts 
Around you, swift t\yes, scu'vic-eabht hands, 
Professing tlK^y'vc; no care but for your clause, 
Thought but to help you, love but i'or yourself, 
And you the marbh; statue; all the time 
They praisi; and point at Jis prelerriMl to life, 
Yet l(5av(! for tin; first Ijnuithing woman's cheek, 
First dancer's, gypsy's, or street baladine's I 
Why, how I have ground my teeth to hear men's speech 
Stifled for lear it should alarm my ear, 
Their gait sulxbuul lest step should startle me, 
Theii (lycs declined, su(;li ipicendom to rcispect. 
Their hands alert, sucb trrasmc to ])r(!serve, 
While not a man of them broki; rank and spoke, 
Or wrot(! nu; a \ulgar letti^r all of love;. 
Or caught my liaml and jiresscid it like a hand I 
Th(!r(! hav(! bec^n monnmts, if the .scMitinel 
Lowering his halbert to salutii tin; ipunui, 
Had flung it brutally and claspiid my knees, 
I would hav(! stooped and kissed hii'n with my soul. 

C'J)i. Who could have eomi>relieuded ? 
Qiierii. Ay, who — who? 

Why, no one, Constance, but this one who did. 
Nor thc^y, not you, not I. Even now perhaps 
It comcis too lat(! — would you but tell the truth. 
Con. I wait to tell it. 

Queen. Well, yon see, he came, 

Outfacfid th(! others, did a work this year 
Exc(!eds in vahuiall was overdone, 
You know — it is not I who say it — all 
Say it. And so (a s(!coud pang and worse) 
I grew aware not only of what he diil, 
But why so woudronsiy. Oii, never work 



196 IN A BALCONY. 



Like his was done for work's ignoble sake — 

It must have finer aims to lure it on ! 

I felt, I saw, he loved — loved somebody. 

And Constance, my dear Constance, do you know, 

I did believe this while 'twas you he loved. 

Con. Me, Madam ? 

Queen. It did seem to me, your face 

Met him where'er he looked : and whom but you 
Was such a man to love ? It seemed to me, 
You saw he loved you, and approved the love, 
And so you both were in intelligence. 
You could not loiter in the garden, step 
Into this balcony, but I straight was stung 
And forced to understand. It seemed so true, 
So right, so beautiful, so like you both, 
That all this work should have been done by him 
Not for the vulgar ho]ie of recompense, 
But that at last — suppose, some night like this — 
Borne on to claim his due reward of me, 
He might say, " Give her hand and pay me so." 
And I (O Constance, you shall love me now !) 
I thought, surmounting all the bitterness, 
— "And he shall ha\e it. I will make her blest, 
My flower of youth, my woman's self that was. 
My happiest woman's self that might have been ! 
These two shall have their joy and leave me here." 
Yes — yes ! 

Con. Thanks ! 

Queen. And the word was on my lips 

"When he burst in upon me. I looked to hear 
A mere calm statement of his just desire 
For payment of his labor. When — O heaven, 
How can I tell you ? cloud was on my eyes 
And thunder in my ears at that first word 
Which told 'twas love of me, of me, did all — 
He loved me — from the first step to the last, 
Loved me ! 

Von. You did not hear . . . you thought he spoke 

Of love ? what if you should mistake ? 

Queen. No, no — 

No mistake ! Ha, there shall be no mistake 1 
He had not dared to hint the love he felt — 
You were my reflex — (how I understood !) 
He said you were the ribbon I had worn, 
He kissed my hand, he looked into my eyes. 
And love, lo\'e was the end of every phrase. 
Love is begun ; this much is come to pass : 
The rest is easy. Constance, I am yours ! 
I will learn, I will place my life on you, 
But teach me hov to keep what I have won 1 
Am I so old ? This hair was early gray ; 
But joy ere now has brought hair brovvn again, 
And joy will bring the cheek's red back, I feel. 
I could sing once too ; that was in my youth. 
Still, when men paint me, they declare me . . . ye», 
Beautiful — for the last French painter did ! 
I know they flatter somewhat ; you are frank — 
I trust you. How I loved yon from the first ! 
Some queens would hardly seek a cousin out 



IN A BALCONY. 197 

And set her by tlieir side to take the eye : 

I must have felt that good would come from you. 

T am not }i;enerons — like liim — like yon ! 

Knt lie is not yrnir lover after all : 

It was not you Ik; look<!d at. Saw you him ? 

Yon have not l»(;en mistaking words or looks ? 

He said yon were; the retiex of myself. 

And yet he is not such a i)aragon 

To yon, to younger women who may choose 

Among a thousand Norberts. Speak the truth I 

You know you never named liis name to me — 

You know, I cannot give him up — ah God, 

Not up now, even to you ! 

Con. Then calm yourself. 

Queen. See, I am old —look here, you happy girl I 
I will not play the fool, deceive myself ; 
*Tis all gone : put your cheek beside my cheek — 
Ah, what a contrast does the moon behold ! 
But then I set my life upon one chance. 
The last chance and the best — am I not left, 
My soul, myself? All women love great men, 
If young or old ; it is in all the tales : 
Young beauties love old po(!ts who can love — 
Why should not he, the i)oems in my soul. 
The love, the passionate faith, the sacrifice, 
The constancy? I throw them at his feet. 
Who cares to see the fountain's very shape, 
And whether it be a Triton's or a Nymph's 
That poiu's the foam, makes rainbows all around? 
You could not praise indeed tin; empty conch ; 
But I'll pour floods of love and hide myself. 
How I will love him ! Cannot men love love ? 
Who was a queen and loved a poet once 
Humpbacked, a dwarf ? ah, women can do that ! 
Well, but men too : at least, they tell you so. 
They love so many women in their youth, 
And even in age they all love whom they please ; 
And yet the best of them confide to friends 
That 'tis not beauty makes the lasting love — 
They spend a ilay with such and tire the next : 
They like soul, —well them, they like fantasy, 
Novelty even. Let us confess the truth, 
Horrible though it be, that prejudice. 
Prescription . . . curses ! tliey will love a queen. 
They will, they do : and will not, does not — he? 

Con. How can he? You are wedded : 'tis a name 
We know, l)ut still a bf)nd. Your rank remains. 
His rank remains. How can he, nobly souled 
As yon believe and I incline to tliink. 
Aspire to be your favorite, shame and all ? 

Queen. Hear her ! There, there now — could she love like me? 
What did I say of smooth-cheeked youth and grace ? 
See all it does or could do ! so, youth loves ! 
Oh, tell him, Constance, yon could never do 
What I will — yon, it was not born in ! I 
Will drive these ditliculties far and fast 
As yonder mists curdling before the moon. 
I'll use my light too, gloriously retrieve 
My youth from its enforced calamity. 



198 JN A BALCONY. 



Dissolve that hateful marriage, and be his, 
His own in the eyes alike of God and man. 

Con. You will do — dare do . . . pause on what you say I 

Queen. Hear her ! I thank you, sweet, for that surprise. 
You have the fair face : for the soul, see mine ! 
I have the strong soul : let me teach you, here. 
I think I have Ijorne enough and long enough, 
And patiently enough, the world remarks. 
To have my own way now, unblamed by all. 
It does so happen (I rejoice for it) 
This most unhoped-for issue cuts the knot. 
There's not a better way of settling claims 
Than this : God sends the accident express : 
And were it for my subjects' good, no more, 
'Twere best thus ordered. I am thankful now, 
Mute, passive, acquiescent. I receive, 
And bless God simply, or shoidd almost fear 
To walk so smoothly to my ends at last. 
Why, how I baffle obstacles, spurn fate ! 
How strong I am ! Could Norbert see me now I 

Con. Let me consider ! It is all too strange. 

Queen. You, Constance, learn of me ; do you, like me I 
You are young, beautiful : my own, best girl, 
You will have many lovers, and love one — 
Light hair, not hair like Norbert's, to suit yours. 
And taller than he is, for yourself are tall. 
Love him, like me ! Give all away to him ; 
Think never of yourself ; throw by your pi-ide, 
Hope, fear, — your own good as you saw it once, 
And love him simply for his very self 
Remember, I (and what am I to you ?) 
Would give up all for one, leave throne, lose life, 
Do all but just unlove him ! He loves me. 

Con. He shall. 

Queen. You, step inside my inmost heart I 

Give me your own heart : let us have one heart 1 
I'll come to j^ou for counsel ; " this he says. 
This he does ; what should this amount to, pray ? 
Beseech you, change it into current coin ! 
Is that worth kisses? Shall I please him there ?" 
And then we'll sjjcak in turn of you — what else ? 
Your love, according to your beauty's worth, 
For you shall have some noble love, all gold : 
Whom choose you ? we will get him at your choice. 
— Constance, I leave you. Just a minute since, 
I felt as I must die or be alone 
Breathing my soul into an ear like yours : 
Now, I would face the world with my new life, 
With mj' new crown. I'll walk around the rooms. 
And then come back and tell you how it feels. 
How soon a smile of God can change the world ! 
How we are made for liapjiiness — how work 
Grows play, adversity a winning fight ! 
True I have lost so many years : what then V 
Many remain : God has been very good. 
You, stay here ! 'Tis as different from dreams, 
From the mind's cold calm estimate of bliss. 
As these stone statues from the flesh and blood. 
The comfort thou hast caused mankind, God's moon ^. 

[JShe goes out, learinij Constance. Dance-music from withini] 



IN A BALCONY. 19S 



NoKBERT enters. 

Nor. Well ? we have but one minute and one word I 

Con. I am yours, Norbert ! 

Nor. Yes, mine. 

Con. Not till now 1 

You were mine. Now I give myself to you. 

Nor. Constance ? 

Con. Your own ! I know the thriftier way 

Of giving — haply, 'tis the wiser way. 
Meaning to give a treasure, I might dole 
Coin after coin out (each, as that were all. 
With a new largess still at each despair). 
And force you keep in sight the deed, iireserve 
Exhaustless to the end my part and yours, 
My giving and your taking ; both our joys 
Dying together. Is it the wiser waj' ? 

I choose the simpler : I give all at once. • 

Knosv what you have to trust to, trade upon ! 
Use it, abuse it, — any thing but think 
Hereafter, " Had I known she loved me so, 
And what my means, I might have thriven with it." 
This is your means. I give you all myself. 

Nor. I take you aud thank God. 

Con. Look on through years ! 

We cannot kiss, a second day like this ; 
Else were this earth, no eartla. 

Nor. With this day's heat 

We shall go on through years of cold. 

Con. So, best ! 

— I try to see those years, — I think I see. 
You walk quick and new warmth comes ; you look back 
And lay all to the first glow — not sit down 
Forever brooding on a day like this 
While seeing the embers whiten and love die. 
Yes, love lives best in its effect ; and mine. 
Full in its own life, yearns to live in yours. 

Nor. Just so. I take and know you all at once. 
Your soul is disengaged so easily, 
Your face is there, I know you ; give me time, 
Let me be proud and think you shall know me. 
My soul is slower : in a life I roll 
The minute out whereto you condense yours — 
The whole slow circle round you I must move, 
To be just you. I look to a long life 
To decompose this minute, prove its worth. 
'Tis th'^, sparks' long succession one by one 
Shall show you, in the end, what fire was crammed 
In that mere stone you struck : how could you know, 
If it lay ever unproved in your sight. 
As now my heart lies ? your own warmth would hide 
Its coldness, were it cold. 

Con. But how prove, how ? 

Nor. Prove in my life, you ask ? 

Con. Quick, Norbert — how? 

Nor. That's easy told. I count life just a stuff 
To try the soul's strength on, educe the man. 
Who keeps one end in view makes all things serve. 
As with the body — he whc hurls a lance 



200 IN A BALCONY 



Or heaps up stone on stone, shows strength alike, 
So I will seize and use all means to prove 
And show this soul of mine, you crown as yours, 
And justify us both. 

Con. Could you write books, 

Paint pictures ! One sits down in poverty 
And writes or paints, with pity for the rich. 

Nor. And loves one's painting and one's writing, then. 
And not one's mistress ! All is best, believe, 
And we best as no other than we are. 
We live, and they experiment on life — 
Those poets, painters, all who stand aloof 
To overlook the farther. Let us be 
The thing they look at ! I might take your face 
And write of it, and jiaint it, — to wliat end ? 
For whom ? what pale dictatress in the air 
Feeds, smiling sadly, her tine ghost-like form 
With earth's real bfood and breath, the beauteous life 
She makes despised forever ? You are mine. 
Made for* me, not for others in the world. 
Nor yet for that which I should call my art. 
The cold calm jiower to see how fair you look. 
I come to you ; I leave you not, to write 
Or paint. You are, I am : let Rubens there 
Paint us ! 

Con. So, best ! 

Nor. I understand your soul. 

You live, and rightly sympathize with life, 
With action, power, success. This way is straight ; 
And time were short beside, to let me change 
The craft njy childhood learnt : my craft shall serve. 
Men set me here to subjugate, enclose. 
Manure their barren lives, and force the fruit 
First for themselves, and afterward for me 
In the due tithe ; the task of some one man. 
Through ways of work appointed by themselves. 
I am not bid create, — they see no star 
Transfiguring my brow to warrant that, — 
But bind in one and carry out their wills. 
So I began : to-night sees how I end. 
What if it see, too, my first outbreak here 
Amid the warmth, surprise, and sympathy. 
And instincts of the heart that teach the head? 
What if the people have discerned at length 
The dawn of the next nature, the new man 
Whose will they venture in the place of theirs, 
And who, they trust, shall find them out new ways 
To heights as new which yet he only sees ? 
I felt it when you kissed me. See this Queen, 
This people, — in our phrase, this mass of men, — 
See how the mass lies passive to my hand 
And how my liand is plastic, and you by 
To make tlie muscles iron ! Oh, an end 
Sliall crown this issue as this crowns the first ! 
My will be on this people ! then, the strain. 
The grappling of the potter with his clay, 
The long, uncertain struggle, — the success 
And consummation of the spirit-\' ork, 
Some vase shaped to the cu**' of the god's lip, 



IN A BALCONY. 201 



While rounded fair for lower men to see 

The Graces in a dance all recognize 

With tiirhulent applause and laughs of heart ! 

So triumph ever shall renew itsell ; 

Ever shall end in efforts higher yet, 

Ever begin . . . 

Con. I ever helping ? 

Nor. Thus I 

{As. he niihrafes her, ike QuEEN enters.^ 

Con. Hist, madam ! So I have performed my part. 
You see your gratitude's true decency, 
Norbert ? A little slow in seeing it ! 
Begin to end the sooner ! What's a kiss ? 

Nor. Constance ? 

Con. Wli.y, must I teach it you again? 

You want a witness to your (lulness, sir ? 
What was I saying tliest> ten minutes long? 
Then I repeat, — when sohk^ young, handsome man 
Like you has acted out a jiart like yours, 
Is pleased to fall in love with one beyond. 
So very far beyond him, as he says, — 
So hopelessly in love that l)ut to speak 
■Would jirove liim mad, — he thinks judiciously, 
And makes some insignificant good soul, 
Like me, his friend, adviser, confidant. 
And verj' stalking-horse to cover him 
In following after what he dares not face — 
When his end's gained — (sir, do you understand ?) 
^\'hen she, he dares not face, has loved him first, 
— -May I not say so, madam ? — tops his hope, 
Aiul overpasses so his wildest dream. 
With glad consent of all, and most of her 
The confidant who brought the same about — 
Wliy, in the moment when such joy explodes, 
I do hold that the merest gentleman 
Will not start rudely from the stalking-horse, 
Dismiss it with a " There, enough of you ! " 
Forget it, show his back unmannerly ; 
But like a liberal heart will rather turn 
And say, " A tingling time of hope was ours ; 
Betwixt the fears anil falterings, we two lived 
A chanceful time in waiting for the prize : 
The confidant, the Constance, served not ill. 
And thougli I shall forget her in due time. 
Her use being answered now, as reason bids. 
Nay as herself bids from her heart of hearts, — 
Still, she has rights, the first thanks go to her. 
The first good praise goes to the prosperous tool. 
And the first —which is the last — rewarding kiss." 

Nor. Constance, it is a dream ~ ah, see, you smile ? 

Con. So, now his part being properly performed, 
Madam, I turn to you and finish mine 
As duly : I do justice in my turn. 
Yes, madam, he has loved you — long and well ; 
He could not hope to tell you so — 'twas I 
Who served to prove ytMir soul accessilile, 
I led his thoughts on, drew th«m to their place 
When else they had wandered out into despair, 
And kept love constant toward its natural aim. 



02 IN A BALCONY. 



Enough, my part is played ; you stoop half-way 

And meet us royally and spare our fears : 

'Tis like yourself. He thanks you, so do I 

Take him — with my full heart ! my work is praised 

By what conies of it. Be you hajipy, both ! 

Yourself — the only one on earth who can — 

Do all for him, much more than a mere heart 

Which though warm is not useful in its warmth 

As the silk vesture of a queen ! fold that 

Around him gently, tenderly. For him — 

For him, — he knows Ills own part ! 

Nor. Have you done ? 

I take the jest at lasit. Should I speak now ? 
Was yours the wager, Constance, foolish child, 
Or did you but accept it ? Well — at least 
You lose by it. 

Con. Nay, madam, 'tis your turn ! 

Restrain him still from speech a little 'more. 
And make him happier and more confident ! 
Pity him, madam, he is timid yet ! 
Mark, Norbert ! Do not shrink now ! Here I yield 
My whole right in you to the Queen, observe ! 
With her go put in practice the great schemes 
You teem with, follow the career else closed — 
Be all you cannot be except by her ! 
Behold her ! — ISIadam, say for pity's sake 
Any thing — frankly say you love him ! Else 
He'll not believe it : there's more earnest in 
His fear than you conceive : I know the man ! 

Nor. I know the woman somewhat, and confess 
I thought she had jested better : she begins 
To overcharge her part. I gravely wait 
Your pleasure, madam : where is my reward ? 

Queen. Norbert, this wild girl (whom I recognize 
Scarce more than you do, in her fancy-fit, 
Eccentric speech, and variable mirth, 
Not verj- wise perhaps and somewhat bold. 
Yet suitable, the whole night's work being strange) 
— May still be right : I may do well to speak 
And make authentic what ajipears a dream 
To even myself. For what slie says is truth. 
Yes, Norbert — what you spoke jiist now of love, 
Devotion, stirred no novel sense in me. 
But justified a warmth felt long before. • 
Yes, from the first — I loved you, I shall say : 
Strange ! but I do grow stronger, now 'tis said. 
Your courage helps mine : you did well to speak 
To-night, the night that crowns your twelvemonths' toil 
But still I had not waited to discern 
Your heart so long, believe me ! From the first 
The source of so much zeal was almost plain. 
In absence even of your own words just now 
Which opened out the truth. 'Tis very strange, 
But takes a happy ending — in your love 
Which mine meets : be it so ! as you choose me. 
So I choose you 

Nor. And worthily you choose. 

I will not be unworthy your esteem, 
No, madam. I do love you ; I will meet 



IN A BALCONY. 20-*^ 



Your nature, now I know it. Tliis was well. 
I see, — you dare and you are iustified : 
But none had ventured such experiment, 
Less versed than you in nohleness of heart, 
Less confident of finding such in me. 
I joy that thus you test "me ere you grant 
Tlie dearest, richest, beauteousest, and best 
Of women to my arms : 'tis like yourself. 
So — back again into my part's set words — 
Devotion to the uttermost is yours, 
But no, you cannot, madam, even you, 
Create in me the love our Constance does. 
Or — something truer to tlie tragic phrase — 
Not you magnolia-bell superb with scent 
Invites a certain insect — that's myself — 
But the small eye-tlower nearer to the ground. 
I take this lady. 

Con. Stay — not hers, the trap — 

Stay, Norbert — that mistake were worst of all ! 
He is too cunning, madam ! It was I, 
I, Norbert, who ^ . . 

Nor. You, was it, Constance ? Then, 

But for the grace of this divinest hour 
Which gives me you, I might not pardon here ! 
I am tiie Queen's ; slie only knows my brain : 
She iffxy experiment therefore on my heart 
And I instruct her too by tlie result. 
But you, Sweet, you who know me, who so long 
Have told my heart-beats over, held my life 
In those white hands of yotirs, — it is not well ! 

Con. Tush ! I have said it, did I not say it all ? 
The life, for her — tlie heart-beats, for her sake ! 

Nor. Enough! my cheek grows red, I think. Your test? 
There's not the meanest woman in the world, 
Not she I least could love in all the world, 
Whom, did she love me, did love prove itself, 
I dare insult as you insult me now. 
Constance, I could say, if it must be said, 
" Take back the soul you offer, I keep mine ! " 
But — " Take the soul still quivering on your hand. 
The soul so offered, which I cannot use, ' 
And, please you, give it to some playful friend, 
For — what's the trifle he requites me with ? " 
— I, tv-mpt a woman, to amuse a man, 
That two may mock her heart if it succumb ? 
No : fearing God and standing 'neath his heaven, 
I would not dare insult a woman so, 
Were she the meanest woman in the world, 
And he, I cared to please, ten emperors ! 

Con. Norbert ! 

Nor. I love once as I live but one*. 

What case is this to think or talk about ? 
I love you. Would it mend the case at all 
Should such a step as this kill love in me ? 
Your part were done : account to God for it ! 
But mine — could murdered love get u}) again, 
And kneel to whom you please to designate, 
And make you mirth ? It is too horrible. 
You did not know this, Constance ? now you know 



204 IN A BALCONY. 



That body and soul have each one life, but one ; 
And here's my love, here, living, at your feet. 

Con. See the Queen ! Norbert — this one more last -word — 
If thus you have taken jest for earnest — thus 
Loved me in earnest . . . 

Nor. Ah, no jest holds here ! 

Where is the laughter in which jest breaks up, 
And what this horror that grows palpable ? 
Madam — why grasp you thus the balcony ? 
Have I done ill ? Have I not spoken truth ? 
How could I other ? Was it not your test. 
To try me, what my love for Constance meant? 
Madam, your royal soul itself approves. 
The first, that I should choose thus ! so one takes 
A beggar, — asks him, what would buy his child ? 
And then approves the expected laugh of scorn 
Returned as something noble from the rags. 
Speak, Constance, I'm the beggar ! Ha, what's this? 
You two glare each at each like panthers now. 
Constance, the world fades : only you stand there ! 
You did not, in to-night's wild whirl of things, 
Sell me — your soul of souls, for any price ? 
No — no — 'tis easy to believe in you ! 
Was it your love's mad trial to o'ertop 
Mine by this vain self-sacrifice ? well, still— ^ 

Though I should curse, I love you. I am love ^ 

And cannot change : love's self is at your feet ! 

{The Qdeen goes oir 

Con. Feel my heart : let it die against your own ! 

Nor. Against my own. Explain not : let this be ! 
This is life's height. 

Con. \''ours, yours, yours ! 

Nor. You and I — 

Why care by what meanders we are here 
I' the centre of the labyrinth ? Men have died 
Ti'ying to find this place, which we have found. 

Con. Found, found ! 

Nor. Sweet, ne^-er fear what she can do ! 

We are past harm now. 

Con. On the breast of God. 

I thought of men — as if you were a man. 
Tempting him with a crown ! 

Nor. This must end here : 

It is too perfect. 

Con. There's the music stopped. 

What measured heavy tread ? It is one blaze 
About me and within me. 

Nor. Oh, some death 

Will run its sudden finger round this spark 
And sever us from the rest ! 

Con. And so do well. 

Now the doors open. * 

Nor. 'Tis the guard comes. 

Con. Ki88 ! 



OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE. 



205 



OLD PICTURES IN FLOR- 
ENCE. 



The morn when first it thunders in 
March, 
The eel in the jioncl gives a leap, 
they say. 
As I leaned and looked over the aloed 
arcli 
Of the villa-gate this warm March 
day, 
No flash snapped, no dumb thunder 
rolled 
In the valle.y beneath where, white 
and wide 
And washed by the morning water- 
gold, 
Florence lay out on the mountain- 
side. 

II. 
River and bridge and street and 
square 
Lay mine, as much at my beck and 
call, 
Througli the live translucent bath of 
air, 
As the sights in a magic crystal-ball. 
And of all I saw and of all I praised. 
The most to praise and the best to 
see 
Was the startling bell-tower Giotto 
raised : 
But why did it more than startle 
me? 

III. 
Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, 
Could you play me false who loved 
you so ? 
Some slights if a certain heart en- 
dures 
Yet it feels, I would have your fel- 
lows know ! 
l" faith, I perceive not why I should 
care 
To break a silence that suits them 
liest, 
P>nt the thing grows somewhat hard 
to bear 
When I find a Giotto join the rest. 



On the arch where olives overhead 
Print the blue sky with twig and 
leaf 



(That sharp-curled leaf which they 
never shed), 
'Twixt the aloes, I used to learn in 
chief, 
And mark through the winter after- 
noons. 
By a gift God grants me now and 
then, 
In the mild decline of those suns like 
moons. 
Who walked in Florence, besides her 
men. 



They might chirp and chaffer, come 
and go 
For pleasure or profit, her men 
alive — 
My business was hardly with them, I 
trow, 
But with empty cells of the human 
hive ; 
— With the chapter-room, the cloister- 
porch. 
The church's apsis, aisle or nave, 
Its crypt, one fingers along with a 
torch, 
Its face set full for the sun to shave. 



Wherever a fresco peels and drops. 
Wherever an outline weakens and 
wanes 
Till the latest life in the painting 
stops. 
Stands One whom each fainter pulse- 
tick pains : 
One, wishful each scrap should clutch 
the brick. 
Each tinge not wholly escape the 
lilaster, 
— A lion who dies of an ass's kick, 
The wronged great soul of an an- 
cient Master. 



For oh, this world and the wrong it 
does ! 
They are safe in heaven with their 
backs to it. 
The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum 
and buzz 
Round the works of, you of the little 
wit ! 
Do their eyes contract to the earth's 
old scope, 
Now that they see God face to face, 



206 



OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE. 



And have all attained to be poets, I 
hope ? 
'Tis their holiday now, in any 
case. 



Much they reck of your praise and 
you ! 
Bntthe wronged great souls — can 
they be quit 
Of a world where their work is all to 
do, 
"Where you style them, you of the 
little wit, 
Old Master This and Early the Other, 
Not dreaming that Old and New are 
fellows : 
A younger succeeds to an elder 
brother, 
Da Vincis derive in good time from 
Dellos. 



And here where your praise might 
yield returns. 
And a handsome word or two give 
help, 
Here, after your kind, the mastiff 
girns, 
And the puppy pack of poodles 
yelp. 
"What, not a word for Stefano there, 
Of brow once prominent and starry, 
Called Nature's Ape and the world's 
despair 
For his peerless painting ? (see "Va- 
sari.) 



There stands the Master. Study, my 
friends, 
"What a man's work comes to ! So 
he plans it. 
Performs it, perfects it, makes amends 
For the toiling and moiling, and 
then, sic transit ! 
Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor. 
With upturned eye while the hand 
is busy. 
Not sidling a glance at the coin of 
their neighbor ! 
'Tis looking downward makes one 
dizzy. 

XI. 

" If you knew their work you would 
deal your dole." 
May I take upon me to instruct 
you ? 



"When Greek Art ran and reached the 
goal. 
Thus much had the world to boast 
in fntciit — 
The Truth of Man, as by God first 
spoken, 
"Which the actual generations gar- 
ble, 
Was re-uttered, and Soul (which 
Limbs betoken) 
And Limbs (Soul informs) made 
new in marble. 



So, you saw yourself as you wished 
you were. 
As you might have been, as you 
cannot be ; 
Earth here, rebuked by Olympus 
there : 
And grew content in your poor de- 
gree 
With your little power, by those 
statues' godhead. 
And your little scope, by their eyes' 
full sway, 
And your little grace, by their grace 
embodied, 
And your little date, by their forms 
that stay. 



You would fain be kinglier, say, than 
I am ? 
Even so, you will not sit like The- 
seus. 
You would prove a model ? The Son 
of Priam 
Has yet the advantage in arms' and 
knees' use. 
You're wroth — can you slay your 
snake like Apollo ? 
You're grieved - still Niobe's the 
grander ! 
You live — there's the Racers' frieze 
to follow : 
You die — there's the dying Alex- 
ander. 



So, testing your weakness by their 
strength, 
Your meagre charms by their 
rounded beauty. 
Measured bv Art in your breadth and 
length. 
You learned — to submit is a mor- 



tal's duty. 



i 



OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE. 



207 



— When I say " you," 'tis the common 
soul, 
Tlie collective, I mean : the race of 
Man 
That receives life in parts to live in a 
whole, 
And grow here according to God's 
clear plan. 



Growth came when, looking your last 
on them all, 
You turned your eyes inwardly one 
fins day 
And cried with a start — What if we 
so small 
Be greater and grander the wliile 
than they ? 
Are they perfect of lineament, per- 
fect of stature ? 
In both, of such lower types are we 
Precisely because of our wider nature; 
For time, theirs — ours, for eternity. 

XVI. 

To-day's brief passion limits their 
range ; 
It seethes with the morrow for us 
and more. 
They are perfect — how else? they 
shall never change : 
We are faulty — why not ? we have 
time in store. 
The Artificer's hand is not arrested 
With us ; we are rough-hewn, no- 
wise polished. 
They stand for our copy, and, once 
invested 
With all they can teach, we shall 
see them abolished. 

XVII. 

Tis a life-long toil till our lump be 
leaven — 
The better ! What's come to per- 
fection perishes. 
Things learned on earth, we shall 
practise in heaven : 
Works done least rapidly, Art most 
cherishes. 
Thyself shalt afford the example, 
Giotto I 
Thy one work, not to decrease or 
diminish, 
Done at a stroke, was just (was it 
not?) "O" 
Thy great Campanile is still to fin- 
ish. 



XVIII. 

Is it true that we are now, and shall 
be hereafter. 
But what and where depend on 
life's miiuite ? 
Hails heavenly cheer or infernal 
laughter 
Our first step out of the gulf or in 
it? 
Shall Man, such step within his en- 
deavor, 
Man's face, have no more play and 
action 
Than joy which is crystallized forever, 
Or grief, an eternal petrifaction ? 



On which I conclude, that the early 
painters, 
To cries of " Greek Art and what 
more wish you ? " — 
Replied, " To become now self-ac- 
quai liters, 
And paint man, man, whatever the 
issue ! 
Make new hopes shine through the 
flesh they fray, 
New fears aggrandize the rags and 
tatters : 
To bring the invisible full into play, 
Let the visible go to the dogs — 
what matters ? " 



Give these, I exhort you, their guer- 
don and glory 
For daring so much, before they 
well did it. 
The first of the new, in our race's 
story. 
Beats the last of the old ; 'tis no 
idle quiddit. 
The worthies began a revolution, 
Which if on earth you intend te 
acknowledge, 
Why, honor them now ! (ends my al- 
locution) 
Nor confer your degree when the 
folks leave college. 



There's a fancy some lean to and 
others hate — 
That, when this life is ended, begins 
New work for the soul in another 
state. 
Where it strives and gets weary, 
loses and wins : 



208 



OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE. 



Where the strong and the weak, this 
world's congeries, 
Repeat in large what they practised 
in small, 
Through life after life in unlimited 
series ; 
Only the scale's to be changed, 
that's all. 

XXII. 

Yet I hardly know. When a soul has 
seen 
By the means of Evil that Good is 
best, 
And, through earth and its noise, 
what is heaven's serene, — 
When our faith in the same has 
stood the test — 
Why, the child grown man, you burn 
the rod. 
The uses of labor are surely done ; 
There remaineth a rest for the people 
of God : 
And I have had troubles enough, 
for one. 

XXIII. 

But at any rate I have loved the sea- 
son 
Of Art's spring-birth so dim and 
dewy ; 
My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan, 

iVIy painter — who but Cimabue ? 
Nor even was man of them all in- 
deed. 
From these to Ghiberti and Ghir- 
landajo. 
Could say that he missed my critic- 
meed. 
So, now to my special grievance — 
heigh-ho ! 



Their ghosts still stand, as I said be- 
fore. 
Watching each fresco flaked and 
rasped, 
Blocked up, knocked out, or white- 
washed o'er : 
— No getting again what the Church 
has grasped ! 
The works on the wall must take 
their chance ; 
" Works never conceded to Eng- 
land's thick clime ! " 
(I hope they prefer their inheritance 
Of a bucketful of Italian quick- 
lime.) 



When they go at length, with such a 
shaking 
Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly 
Each master his way through the 
black streets taking, 
Where many a lost work breathes 
though badly — 
Why don't they bethink them of who 
lias merited ? 
Why not reveal, while their jiii- 
tures dree 
Such doom, how a captive might be 
out-ferreted ? 
Why is it they never remember me ? 

XXVI. 

Not that I expect the great Bigordi, 
Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, 
bellicose ; 
Nor the wronged Lippino ; and not a 
word I 
Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico's : 
But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, 

To grant me a taste of your intonaco. 
Some Jerome that seeks the heaven 
with a sad eye ? 
Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Mo- 
naco ? 

xxvii. 
Could not the ghost with the close red 
cap, 
My Pollajolo, the twice a crafts- 
man, 
Save me a sample, give me the hap 
Of a muscular Christ that shows 
the draughtsman ? 
No Virgin by him the somewhat petty, 
Of finical touch and tempera 
crumbly — 
Could not Alesso Baldovinetti 
Contribute so much, I ask hiir 
humbly ? 

XXVIII. 

Margheritone of Arezzo, 
With the grave-clothes garb and 
swaddling barret 
(Why purse up mouth and beak in a 
pet so. 
You bald old saturnine poll-clawed 
parrot ?) 
Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion, 
Svhere in the foreground kneels the 
donor ? 
If such remain, as is my conviction, 
The hoarding it does you but little 
honor. 



OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE. 



209 



XXIX. 

They pass ; for them the panels may 
thrill, 
The tempera grow alive and tin- 
glish : 
Their pictures are left to the mercies 
still 
Of dealers and stealers, Jews and 
the English, 
Who, seeing mere money's worth in 
their prize, 
Will sell it to somebody calm as 
Zeno 
At naked High Art, and in ecstasies 
Before some clay-cold vile Carlino ! 

XXX. 

No matter for these ! But Giotto, 
you. 
Have you allowed, as the town- 
tongues babble it — 
Oh, never ! it shall not be counted 
true — 
That a certain precious little tablet 
Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover. 
Was buried so long in ol)livion's 
womb 
And, left for another than I to dis- 
cover. 
Turns up at last ! and to whom? — 
to whom ? 



XXXI. 

I, that have haunted the dim San 
Spirito, 
(Or was it rather the Ognissanti ?) 
Patient on altar-step planting a weary 
toe! 
Nay, I shall have it yet ! Detur 
amunii ! 
My Koh-i-noor — or (if that's a plati- 
tude) 
Jewel of Giamschid, the Persian 
Soft's eye ; 
So, in anticipative gratitude. 
What if 1 take up my hope and 
prophesy ? 



XXXII. 

When the hour grows ripe, and a cer- 
tain dotard 
Is pitched, no parcel that needs in- 
voicing. 
To the worst side of the Mont St. 
Gothard, 
We shall begin by way of rejoicing; 



None of that shooting the sky (blank 
cartridge), 
Nor a civic guard, all plumes and 
lacquer, 
Hunting Radetzky's soul like a jiar- 
tridge 
Over Morello with squib and crack 
er. 

XXXIII. 

This time we'll shoot better game an'i 
bag 'em hot : 
No mere display at the stone ol 
Dante, 
But a kind of sober Witanagemot 
(Ex: " Casa Guidi," quod videas 
ante) 
Shall ponder, once Freedom restored 
to Florence, 
How Art may return that departed 
with her. 
Go, hated house, go each trace of the 
Loraine's, 
And bring us the days of Orgagna 
hither ! 

XXXIV. 

How we shall prologuize, how we 
shall perorate. 
Utter fit things upon art and history. 
Feel truth at blood-heat and falsehood 
at zero rate, 
Make of the want of the age no 
mystery ; 
Contrast the fructuous and sterile 
eras. 
Show — monarchy ever its uncouth 
cub licks 
Out of the bear's shape into Chima3- 
ra's. 
While Pure Art's birth is still the 
republic's I 

XXXV. 

Then one shall propose in a speech 
(curt Tuscan, 
Expurgate and sober, with scarce).! 
an " is.simo "), 
To end now our half-told tale of Cam 
buscan. 
And turn the bell-tower's alt to 
altisstmo ■ 
And, fine as the beak of a young 
beccaccia. 
The Campanile, the Duomo's fit 
ally, 
Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia, 
Completing Florence, as Florence, 
Italy. 



210 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 



1 



Shall I be alive that morning the scaf- 
fold 
Is broken away, and the long-pent 
fire, 
Like the golden hope of the world, 
un baffled 
Springs from its sleep, and up goes 
the spire, 
While, "God and the Peoi^le" plain 
for its motto, 
Thence the new tricolor flaps at the 
sky? 
At least to foresee that glory of 
Giotto 
And Florence together, the first am 
I! 

Note. — The space left here tempts to a 
word on the line about Apollo the snake- 
slayer, which my friend Professor Colvin 
condemns, believing that the God of the 
Belvedere grasps no bow, but the ^gis, as 
described in the 15th Iliad. Surely the text 
represents that portentous object {Bovpiy, 



h^ivriv, aju(^t5aa'etaf , aptTrpeire* — /xap|Ltap£>}i') 
as " shaken violently " or " held immova- 
bly " by both hands, not a single one, and 
that the left hand ; — 

dAAa <jv y iv ;^cipe(ra'<. Ad;8' alyi&a Ovaa- 

voeo'aav 
Tijf fidK' iTnuaeiuiv i^o|3c'ci;' TJpoia; 'A;^otous. 

and so on, rr)v ap' o y' iv x*'Pf<''<'^'>' «X"'' 
— X^po^if' fx' dTpe'fia, k. t. A. Moreover, 
while he shook it he " shouted enormously," 
ctckt', (ttI 8' aiirh^ aixje /udAa /ueya, which 
the statue does not. Presently when Teuk- 
ros, on the other side, plies the bow, it is 
To^or €,\u>i' €1' xeipi TraAti'Toi'Oc. Besides, 
by the act of discharging an arrow, the right 
arm and hand are thrown back as we see, — 
a quite gratuitous and theatrical display in 
the case supposed. The conjecture of Flax- 
man that the statue was suggested by the 
bronze Apollo Alexikakos of Kahimis, men- 
tioned by Pausanias, remains probable ; 
though the "hardness" which Cicero con- 
siders to distinguish the artist's workmanship 
IrcMu that of Muron is not by any means ap- 
parent in our marble copy, if it be one. — 
Feb. IG, 1880. 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 

No more wine ? then we'll push back chairs and taUC. 
A final glass for me, though : cool, i' faith ! 
We ou»ht to have our Abbey back, you see. 
It's different, preaching in basilicas, 
And doing duty in some masterpiece 
Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart ! 
I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes, 
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere ; 
It's just like breathing in a limo-kiln : eh ? 
Thes'e hot, long ceremonies of our Church 
Cost us a little — oh, they pay the price. 
You take me — amply pay it ! Now we'll talk. 

So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs. 
No deprecation, — nay, I beg you, sir ! 
Beside 'tis our engagement : don't you know, 
I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out. 
We'd see truth dawn together?— truth that peeps 
Over the glass's edge when dinner's done, 
And body gets its sop and holds its noise. 
And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time : 
'Tis break of day ! You do despise me then. 
And if I say, " despise me," — never fear I 
I know you do not in a certain sense — 
Not in my arm-chair, for example : here. 
I will imagine you rcspei't my place 
(Status, entourage, worldly circumstance) 



BISHOP BLOUGIiAM'S APOLOGY. .211 



Quite to its value — very uiucli indeed : 

— Arc up to the protesting eyes of you 
In pride at being seated here for once; — 
You'll turn it to such capital aeeount, ! 

Wlicu somebody, through years and years to conae, 

Hints of the bishop, — names me — that's enough : 

" Blougram '.* I knew him " — (into it you slide) 

" Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day, 

All alone, we two ; he's a elever man : 

And after dinner, — why, the wine yon know, — 

Oh, there was wine, and good ! — what with the wine . , 

'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk ! 

He's no bad fellow, Blougram ; ]n' had seen 

Something of min(i lui relished, some; review : 

He's quite above their humbug in his heart, 

Half said as much, indeed — tlie thing's his trade. 

I warrant, Blougram's scei)tical at times : 

How otherwise ? I likc^ him, I confess ! " 

C'hc che, my dear sir, as we say at Koiik!, 

Don't you protest now ! It's fair give and take ; 

You have had your turn, and sjioken your home-truths 

The hand's mine now, and here you follow suit. 

Thus much conceded, still the first fact stays — 
You do despise me ; your ideal of life 
Is not the bishop's : you would not be I. 
You would like bettcu- to be Goethe, now, 
Or Buonaparte, or, bless me, lower still. 
Count D'Orsay, — so you did what you preferred, 
Spoke as you thought, and, as you cannot help. 
Believed or disbtdieved, no matter what. 
So long as on that point, whate'er it was, 
You IcHjsed your mind, were whole and sole yourself. 

— That, my ideal never can include. 
Upon that element of truth and worth 
Never be based ! for say they make me Pope 
(They can't — suppose it for our argument), 
Why, there I'm at my tether's end, I've reached 
My luiight, and not a height which pleases you : 
An unbelieving Pope won't do, you say. 

It's like those eerie stories nurstis tell. 

Of how some actor played Death on a stage, 

"With pasteboard crown, sham orb, and tinselled dart, 

And called himself the monarch of the world ; 

Then, going in the tire-room afterward. 

Because the play was done, to shift himself. 

Got touched upon the sleeve familiarly, 

The moment he had shut the closet door. 

By Death himself. Thus God might touch a Pope 

At unawares, ask what his baul)les mean. 

And whose part he presumed to play just now ? 

Best be yourself, imperial, plain, and true ! 

So, drawing comfortable breath again. 
You weigh and find, whatever more or less 
I boast of my ideal realized, 
Is nothing in the ])alance when opposed 
To your ideal, your grand simple life, 
Of which you will not realize one jot. 



212^ BISHOP BLOV GRAM'S APOLOGY. 

I am much, you are nothing ; you woukl be all, 
I woukl be merely much : you beat me there. 

No, friend, you do not beat me : hearken why I 
The common problem, yours, mine, every one's, 
Is — not to fancy what were fair in life 
Provided it could be, — but, finding first 
What may be, then find liow to make it fair 
Up to our means : a very different thing ! 
No abstract intellectual jilan of life 
Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws. 
But one, a man, who is man and nothing more, 
May lead within a world which (by your leave) 
Is Rome or London, not Fool's-paradise. 
Embellish Rome, idealize away. 
Make jjaradise of London if you can, 
You're welcome, nay, you're wise. 

A simile 1 
We mortals cross the ocean of this world 
Each in his average cabin of a life ; 
The best's not big, the worst yields elbow-room. 
Now for our six months' voyage — how prepare? 
You come on shipboard with a landsman's list 
Of things he calls convenient : so they are I 
An India screen is pretty furniture, 
A piano-forte is a fine resource. 
All Balzac's novels occupy one shelf, 
The new edition fifty volumes long ; 
And little Greek books, with the funny type 
They get up well at Lcipsic, fill the next : 
Go on ! slabbed marble, what a bath it makes ! 
And Parma's piide, the Jerome, let us add ! 
'Twere ])leasant could Correggio's Heeting glow 
Hang full in face of one where'er one roams, 
Since he more than the others brings with him 
Italy's self, — the marvellous Modenese ! — 
Yet was not on your list before, perhaps. 
— Alas, friend ! here's the agent . . . is't the name? 
The captain, or whoever 's master here — 
You see him screw his face up ; what's his cry 
Ere you set foot on shipl)oard ? " Six feet square I " 
If you won't understand what six feet mean, 
Compute and purchase stores accordingly — 
And if, in pique liecause he overhauls 
Your Jerome, piano and bath, you come on board 
Bare — why, you cut a figure at the first 
While sympathetic landsmen see you off ; 
Not afterward, when long ere half seas over, 
You peep uji from your utterly naked lioarda 
Into some snug and well-apiiointed berth. 
Like mine for instance (try the cooler jug — 
Put back the other, but don't jog the ice !) 
And mortified you mutter " Well and good ; 
He sits enjoying his sea-furniture ; 
'Tis stout and proper, and there's store of it : 
Though I've the better notion, all agree. 
Of fitting rooms up. Hang the carpenter, 
Neat ship-shape fixings and contrivances — 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 213 



I would have brought my Jerome, frame and all ! " 
And ineaiitinie you bring nothing : never mind — 
Yovi've proved your artist-nature : what you don't 
You might bring, so despise me, as I say. 

Now come, let's backward to the starting-place. 
See my way : we're two college friends, suppose. 
Prepare together for our voyage, then ; 
Each note and check the other in his work, — 
Here's mine, a bishop's outfit ; criticise ! 
What's wrong ? why won't you be a bishop too ? 

Why first, you don't believe, you don't and can't 
(Not statedly, that is, and fixedly 
And absolutely and exclusively), 
In any revelation called divine. 
No dogmas nail your faith ; and what remains 
But say so, like the honest man you are ? 
First, therefore, overhaul theology ! 
Nay, I too, not a fool, you please to think, 
Must find believing every whit as hard : 
And if I do not frankly say as much, 
The ugly consequence is clear enough. 

Now wait, ray friend : well, I do not believe — 
If you'll accejit no faith that is not fixed, 
Absolute and excilusive, as you say. 
You're wrong — I mean to prove it in due time. 
Meanwhile, I know where difficulties lie 
I could not, cannot solve, nor ever shall. 
So give up hope accordingly to solve — 
(To you, and over the wine). Our dogmas then 
With both of us, though in unlike degree. 
Missing full credence — overboard with them ! 
I mean to meet you on your own premise : 
Good, there go mine in company with yours 1 

And now what are we ? unbelievers both, 
Calm and complete, determinately fixed 
To-day, to-morrow, and forever, pray ? 
You'll guarantee me that ? Not so, I think I 
In no wise ! all we've gained is, that belief. 
As unbelief before, shakes us by fits. 
Confounds us like its predecessor. Where's 
The gain ? how can we guard our unbelief. 
Make it bear fruit to us ? — the iiroblem here. 
Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch, 
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, 
A chorus-ending from Euripides, — 
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears 
As old and new at once as nature's self, 
To rap and knock and enter in our soul, 
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, 
Round the ancient idol, on his base again, — 
The grand Perhaps ! We look on helplessly. 
There the old misgivings, crooked questions are — 
This good God, — what he could do, if he would, 
Would, if he could — then must have done long since ; 
If so, when, w'nere, and how ? some way must be, — 



214 BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 



Once feel about, and soon or late you hit 
Some sense, in which it might be, after all. 
Why not " The Way, the Truth, the Life " ? 



That way 



Over the mountain, which who stands upon 

Is apt to doubt if it be indeed a road ; 

While if he views it from the waste itself, 

Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow, 

Not vague, niistakable ! what's a break or two 

Seen from the unbroken desert either side ? 

And then (to bring in fresh philosojr.iy) 

What if the breaks themselves should prove at last 

The most consummate of contrivances 

To train a man's eye, teach him what is faith ? 

And so we stumble at truth's very test ! 

All we have gained then by our unbelief 

Is a life of doubt diversified by faith. 

For one of faith diversified by doubt : 

We called the chess-board white, — we call it black. 

" Well," yon rejoin, " the end's no worse, at least ; 
We've reason for both colors on the board : 
Why not confess then, where I drop the faith 
And j'ou the doubt, that I'm as right as you ? " 

Because, friend, in the next place, this being so, 
And both things even, — faith and unbelief 
Left to a man's choice, — we'll proceed a step, 
Returning to our image, which I like. 

A man's choice, yes — but a cabin passenger's — 
The man made for the special life o' the world — 
Do you forget him ? I remember though ! 
Consult our ship's conditions and you find 
One and but one choice suitable to all ; 
The clioice, that you unluckily prefer. 
Turning things topsy-turvy — they or it 
Going to the ground. Belief or unbelief 
Bears upon life, determines its whole course, 
Begins at its beginning. See the Avorld 
Such as it is, — you made it not, nor I ; 
I mean to take it as it is, — and you. 
Not so you'll take it, — though you get naught eloa. 
I know the special kind of life I like, 
What suits the most my idiosyncrasy. 
Brings out the best of me and bears me fruit 
In power, peace, pleasantness, and length of days. 
I find that jwsitive belief does this 
For me, and unbelief, no whit of this. 
— For you, it does, however ? — that, we'll try I 
'Tis clear, I cannot lead my life, at least, 
Induce the world to let me peaceably. 
Without declaring at the outset, " Friends, 
I absolutely and peremptorily 
Believe ! " — I say, faith is my waking life : 
One sleeps, indeed, and dreams at intervals. 
We know, but waking's the main jioint with us, 
And my provision's for life's waking part. 



BISHOP BLOUGHAM'S APOLOGY. 215 



Accordingly, I use heart, head, and hand 

All day, I build, sclieni(^, study, and make friends ; 

And when nifi:lit overtakes nie, down I lie, 

Sleep, dream a little, and get done with it, 

The sooner the better, to begin afresh. 

What's midnight doubt before the dayspring's faith T 

You, the philosojilmr, that disbelieve, 

That recognize tlie night, give dr(!anis their weight — 

To be consistent you should keej) j'Oiir bed, 

Abstain from healthy acts that prove you man, 

For fear you drowse perhaps at unawares ! 

And certainly at night you'll sleep and dream, 

Live through the day and bustle as you please. 

And so you live to sleep as i to wake, 

To unbelieve as I to still believe ? 

Well, and the common sense o' the world calls you 

Bed-ridden, — and its good things come to me. 

Its estimation, which is half the tight, 

That's the first-cabin comfort I secure : 

The next . . . but you ptirceive with half an eye ! 

Come, come, it's best believing, if we may ; 

You can't but own that ! 

Next, concede again 
If once we choose belief, on all accounts 
We can't be too decisive in our faith, 
Conclusive and exclusive in its terms. 
To suit the world which gives us the good things. 
In every man's career are certain points 
Whereon he dares not be indifferent ; 
The world detects him clearly, if he dare, 
As bafHed at the game, and losing life. 
He may care little or he may care much 
For riches, honor, pleasure;, work, repose, 
Since various theories of life and life's 
Success are extant which might easily 
Comport with either estimate of these ; 
And whoso chooses wealth or poverty, 
Labor or qinet, is not judged a fool 
Because his fellow would choose otherwise : 
We let him choose upon his own acjcount 
So long as he's consistent with his choice. 
But certain points, left wholly to himself. 
When onc(! a man has arbitrated on. 
We say he must succeed there or go hang. 
Thus, he should wed the woman he loves most 
Or needs most, whatsoe'er the love or need — 
For he can't wed twice. Tlum, Ik; must avouch, 
Or follow, at the least, sufficiently. 
The form of faith his conscience holds the best, 
Whate'er the proc<'SS of conviction was : 
For nothing can compensate his mistake 
On such a point, the man himself being judge : 
He cannot wed twice, nor twice lose his soul. 

Well now, there's one great form of Christian raitb 
I happened to be born in — which to teach 
Was given me as I gr«w up, on all hands. 
As best and readiest means of living by ; 



216 BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 



The same on examination being proved 

The most, pronounced moreover, fixed, precise 

And absolute form of faith in the whole world — 

Accordingly, most potent of all forms 

For working on the world. Observe, my friend I 

Such as you know me, I am free to say, 

In these hard latter days which hamper one, 

Myself— by no immoderate exercise 

Of intellect and learning, but the tact 

To let external forces work for me, 

— Bid the street's stones be bread and they are bread ; 

Bid Peter's creed, or rather, Hildebrand's, 

Exalt me o'er my fellows in the world 

And make my life an ease and joy and pride ; 

It does so, — which for me's a great point gained. 

Who have a soid and body that exact 

A comfortable care in manj' ways. 

There's power in rae and will to dominate 

Which I must exercise, they hurt me else : 

In many ways I need mankind's respect, 

Obedience, and the love that's born of fear : 

While at tlie same time, there's a taste I have, 

A toy of soul, a titillating thing, 

Refuses to digest these dainties crude. 

The naked life is gross till ('lothed upon : 

I must take what men oiU'v, with a grace 

As though I would not, could I help it, take 1 

An uniform I wear thougli over-rich — 

Something imposed on m(^ no choice of mine ; 

No fancy-dress worn for pure fancy's sake 

And despicable therefore ! now folks kneel 

And kiss my hand — of course the Church's hand. 

Thus I am made, thus life is best for me, 

And thus that it should be; I have procured ; 

And thus it could not be another way, 

I venture to imagine. 

You'll reply. 
So far my choice, no doubt, is a success ; 
But were I made of better elements. 
With nobler instincts, purer tastes, like you, 
I hardly would account the thing success 
Though it did all for me I say. 

But, friend, 
We speak of what is ; not of what might be, 
And how 'twere better if 'twere otherwise 
I am the man you see here plain enough : 
Grant I'm a beast, why, beasts must lead beasts' lives ! 
Suppose I own at once to tail and claws ; 
The tailless man exceeds me : but being tailed 
I'll lash out lion fashion, and leave apes 
To dock th(>ir stump and dress their haunches up. 
Mj' business is not to remake myself, 
But make the absolute best of Vt'hat God made. 
Or — our first simile — though you prove me doomed 
To a viler berth still, to the steerage-hole. 
The sheep-]ien or tin; i)ig-sty, I should strive 
To make what use of each were possible ; 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 217 

And as tins cabin gyts upliolstory, 

That hutch should rustic with sutHcient straw. 

But, friend, I don't acknowledge (juite so faat 
I fail of all your manhood's lofty tastes 
Enumerated so complacently, 
On the mere ground that you forsooth can find 
In this particular lif(! I choose to lead 
No fit provision for them. Can you not ? 
Say you, my fault is I address myself 
To grossia- (estimators than should judge ? 
And that's no way of holding up the soul, 
Which, nobler, needs men's praise perhaps, yet knows 
One wise man's verdict outweighs all the fools' — 
Would like the two, but, forced to choose, takes that. 
I pine among my million imbeciles 
(You think) aware some dozen men of sense 
Eye me and know me, whether I believe 
In the last winking Virgin, as I vow, 
And am a fool, or disbelieve in her 
And am a knave, — approve in neither case. 
Withhold their voices though I look their way : 
Like Verdi when, at his worst opera's end 
(The thing they gave at Florence — what's its name ?) 
While th(i mad hous(!furs plaudits near out-bang 
His orchestra of salt-box, tongs, and bones. 
He looks through all the roaring and the wreaths 
Where sits Rossini patient in his stall. 

Nay, friend, I meet you with an answer here — 
That even your prime men who appraise their kind 
Are men still, catch a wheel within a wheel, 
See more in a truth than the truth's simple self, 
Confuse themselves. You see lads walk the street 
Sixty the minute ; what's to note in that? 
You see one lad o'erstride a chimijey-stack ; 
Him you must watch — he's sure to fall, yet stands { 
Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things. 
The honest thief, the tender murderer. 
The superstitious atheist, demirep 
That lovers and saves her soul in new French books — 
We watch while these in equilibrium keep 
The giddy line midway: one step aside;. 
They're (;]assed and done with. I, then, keep the line 
Before yoiu' sage.;. — just the men to shrink 
From tiie gross wei;;hts, coarse scales, and labels broad 
You offer their refinement. Fool, or knave ? 
Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave 
When tliere's a thousand diamond weights between ? 
So, I enlist them. Your i)icked twelve, you'll find, 
Profess themselves indignant, scandalized 
At thus being held unable to explain 
How a sup(;rior man who disbelieves 
May not believe as well : that's Schelling's way I 
It's through my coming in the tail of time, 
Nicking the minute with a happy tact. 
Had I been born three hundred years ago 

They'd say, " What's strange ? Blougram of course believes ; " 
And, seventy years since, " disbelieves of course." 



218 BISHOP BLOUGEAM'S APOLOGY. 



But now, " He may believe ; and yet, and yet 

How can he ? " All eyes turn with interest. 

Whereas, step off the line on either side — 

You, for example, clever to a fault, 

The rough and ready man who write apace. 

Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less — 

You disbelieve ! Who wonders and who cares ? 

Lord So-and-so — his coat bedropped with wax, 

All Peter's chains about his waist, his back 

Brave with tlie needlework of Noodledom — 

Believes ! Again, who wonders and who cares ? 

But I, the man of sense and learning too, 

The able to think yet act, the this, the that, 

I, to believe at this late time of day ! 

Enough ; you see, I need not fear contempt. 

— Except it's yours ! Admire me as these may, 
You don't. But whom at least do you admire ? 
Present your own perfection, your ideal. 
Your pattern man for a minute — oh, make haste 1 
Is it Napoleon you would have us grow ? 
Concede the means ; allow his liead and hand 
(A large concession, clever as you are). 
Good ! In our common primal element 
Of unbelief (we can't believe, you know — 
We're still at that admission, recollect !) 
Where do you find — apart from, towering o'er 
The secondary temporary aims 
Which satisfy the gross taste j-ou despise — 
Where do you find his star ? — his crazy trust 
God knows through what or in what ? it's alive 
And shines and leads him, and that's all we want. 
Have we aught in our sober night shall point 
Such ends as his were, and direct the means 
Of working out our purpose straight as his, 
Nor bring a moment's trouble on success 
With after-care to justify the same ? 
— Be a Napoleon and yet disbelieve — 
Why, the man's mad, friend, take his light away I 
What's the vague g(jo(l o' the world, for which you dare 
Witli comfort to yourself blow millions up ? 
We neither of us see it ! we do see 
The blown-up millions — spatter of their brains 
And writhing of their bowels and so forth, 
In that bewildering entanglement 
Of horrible eventualities 
Past calculation to the end of time ! 
Can I mistake for some clear word of God 
(Which were my ample warrant for it all) 
His puff of hazy instinct, idle talk, 
"The State, that's I," quack-nohsense about crowns, 
And (when one beats the man to his last hold) 
A vague idea of setting things to rights. 
Policing people efficaciously. 
More to their profit, most of all to his own ; 
The whole to end that dismallest of ends 
By an Austrian marriage, cant to us the Church, 
And resurrection of the old regime ? 
Would I, who hope to live a dozen years. 
Fight Austerlitz for reasons such and such ? 



BISHOP BLOU GRAM'S APOLOGY. 219 



No : for, concede me but the merest chance 

Doubt may he wrong — there's judgment, life to come I 

With just that chance, I dare not. Doubt proves right? 

This present life is all ? — you offer nae 

Its dozen noisy years, witliout a chance 

That wedding an arch-duchess, wearing lace, 

And getting called by divers new-coined names, 

Will drive off ugly tlioughts and let me dine, 

Sleep, read, and chat iu quiet as I like ! 

Therefore I will not. 

Take another case, 
Fit up the cabin yet another way. 
What sa.y j'ou to the poets ? shall we write 
Hamlet, Othello — make the world our own, 
Without a risk to run of either sort ? 
I can't ! — to put the strongest reason first. 
" But try," you urge, " the trying shall suflSce ; 
The &im, if reached or not, makes great the life : 
Try to be Shaks[>eare, leave the rest to fate ! " 
Spare my self-knowledge — there's no fooling me ! 
If I prefer remaining my poor self, 
I say so not in self-dispraise but praise. 
If I'm a Sliakspeare, let the well alone ; 
Why should I try to be wliat now I am ? 
If I'm no Sliakspeare, as too probable, — 
His power and consciousness and self-delight 
And all we want in common, shall I find — 
Trying forever? while on points of taste 
Wherewith, to speak it humbly, he and I 
Are dowered alike — I'll ask you, I or he, 
Which in our two lives realizes most ? 
Much, he imagined : somewhat, I possess. 
He had the imagination ; stick to that ! 
Let him say, " In the face of my soul's works 
Your world is worthless and I touch it not 
Lest I should wrong them " — I'll withdraw my plea> 
But does he say so ? look upon his life ! 
Himself, who only can, gives judgment there. 
He leaves his towers and gorgeous palaces 
To bivld the trimmest house in Stratford town ; 
Saves m'>ney, spends it, owus the worth of things, 
Giulio Romano's pictures, Dowland's lute ; 
Enjoys a sliow, respects the puppets too. 
And none more, had he seen its entry once. 
Than ' Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal." 
Why thea should I who play that personage. 
The very Pandulph Shakspeare's fancy made, 
Be told that had the poet chanced to start 
From where I stand now (some degree like mine 
Being just the goal he ran his race to reach) 
He would have run the whole race back, forsooth. 
And left being Panduljih, to begin write plays ? 
Ah, the earth's best can be but the earth's best ! 
Did Shakspeare live, he could but sit at home 
And get himself in dreams the Vatican, 
Greek busts, Venetian paintings, Roman walla, 
And English books, none cijual to his own, 
Which I read, bound in gold (he never did). 



220 BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 



— Terni's fall, Najjles' bay, and Gothard's top — 

Eh, friend ? I could not fancy one of these ; 

But, as I pour this claret, there they are : 

I've gained them — crossed St. Gothard last July 

With ten mules to the carriage and a bed 

Sluug inside ; is my hap the worse for that ? 

We want the same things, Shakspeare and myself. 

And what I want, I have : he, gifted more, 

Could fancy he too had it when he liked, 

But not so thoroughly that, if fate allowed, 

He would not have it also in my sense. 

We play one game ; I send the ball aloft 

No less adroitly that of fifty strokes 

Scarce five go o'er the wall so wide and high 

Which sends them back to me : 1 wish and get. 

He struck balls higher and with better skill, 

But at a poor fence level with his head. 

And hit — his Stratford house, a coat of arms, 

Successful dealings in his grain and wool : 

While I receive heaven's incense in my nose, 

And style myself the cousin of Queen Bess. 

Ask him, if this life's all, who wins the game ? 

Believe — and our whole argument breaks up. 
Enthusiasm's the best thing, I rejieat ; 
Only, we can't command it ; fire and life 
Are all, dead matter's nothing, we agree : 
And be it a mad dream or God's very breath, 
The fact's the same, — belief's fire, once in us, 
Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself : 
We penetrate our life with such a glow 
As fire lends wood and iron — this turns steel. 
That burns to ash — all's one, fire proves its power 
For good or ill, since men call Hare success. 
But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn. 
Light one in me, I'll find it food enough ! 
Why, to be Luther — that's a life to lead, 
Incompai'ably better than my own. 
He comes, reclaims God's earth for God, he says. 
Sets up God's rule again by simple means. 
Re-opens a shut book, and all is done. 
He rtared out in the flaring of mankind ; 
Such Luther's luck was : how shall such be mine ? 
If he succeeded, nothing's left to do : 
And if he did not altogether — well, 
Strauss is the next advance. All Strauss should be 
I might be also. But to what result ? 
He looks upon no future : Luther did. 
What can I gain on the denying side? 
Ice m.''kes no conflagration. 'State the facts, 
Read the text right, emancipate the world — 
The emancipated world enjoys itself 
With scarce a thank-you : Blougram told it first 
It could not owe a farthing, — not to him 
More than Saint Paul ! 'twould press its pay, you think' 
Then add there's still tiiat plaguy hundredth chance 
Strauss may be wrong. And so a risk is run — 
For what gain ? not for Lutlicr's, who secured 
A real heaven in his heart througliout his life, 
Supposing death a little altered things. 



J 



BISHOP BLOUGRA.\rS APOLOGY. 221 

" Ay, but since really you lack faith," you cry, 
" You run the same risk really on all sides, 
In cool indil'ference as bold unbelief. 
As well be Strauss as swing 'twixt Paul and him. 
It's not worth having, such imperfect faith. 
No more available to do faith's work 
Than unbelief like mine. Whole faith, or none ! " 

Softly, my friend ! I must dispute that point. 
Once own the use of faith, I'll find you faith. 
"We're back on Christian ground. You call for faith : 
I show you doubt, to ])rove that faith exists. 
The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say. 
If faith o'ercomes doubt. How I know it does ? 
By life and man's free will, God gave for that ! 
To mould life as we choose it, shows our choice : 
That's our one act, the previous work's his own. 
You criticise the soil ? it reared this tree — 
This broad life and whatever fruit it bears ! 
What matter though I doubt at every pore. 
Head-doubts, heart-doubts, doubts at my fingers' ends, 
Doubts in the trivial work of every day, 
Doubts at the very bases of my soul 
In tlie grand moments when she probes herself — 
If finally I have a life to show, 
The thing I did, brought out in evidence 
Against the thing done to me underground 
By hell and all its brood, for aught I know? 
I say, whence sprang this ? shows it faith, or doubt? 
All's doubt in me ; where's break of faith in this? 
It is the idea, the feeling and the love, 
God means mankind should strive for and show forth 
Whatever be the process to that end, — 
And not historic knowledge, logic sound, 
And metaphysical acumen, sure ! 

" What think ye of Christ," friend ? when all's done and said. 
Like you this Christianity, or not? 
It may be false, but will you wish it true ? 
Has it your vote to be so if it can ? 
Trust you an instinct silenced long ago 
That will break silence and enjoin you love 
What mortified philosophy is hoarse. 
And all in vain, with bidding you despise? 
If you desire faith — then you've faith enough : 
What else seeks God — nay, what else seek ourselves ? 
You form a notion of me, we'll suppose, 
On hearsay ; it's a favorable one : 
" But still (you add), " there was no such good man, 
Because of contradiction in the facts. 
One proves, for instance, he was 1)orn in Rome, 
This Blougram ; yet throughout the tales of him 
I see he figures as an Englislmian." 
Well, the two things are reconcilable. 
But would I rather you discovered that. 
Subjoining— " Still, what matter though they be? 
Blougram concerns me naught, born here or there." 

Pure faith indeed — you know not what you ask I 
Naked belief in God the Omnipotent, 



222 BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 



Omniscient, Omnipresent, sears too much 
The sense of conscious creatures to be borne. 
It were tlie seeing him, no tiesh sliall dare. 
Some think, Creation's meant to show him forth : 
I say it's meant to hide him all it can. 
And that's wliat all the blessed evil's for. 
Its use in Time is to environ us, 
Our breath, our drop of dew, with shield enough 
Against that sight till we can bear its stress. 
Under a vertical sun, the exposed brain 
And lidless eye and disemprisoned heart 
Less certainly would wither up at once 
Than mind, confronted with the truth of him. 
But time and earth case-harden us to live ; 
The feeblest sense is trusted most ; the child 
Feels God a moment, ichors o'er the place. 
Plays on, and grows to be a man like us 
With me, faith means jierpetual unbelief 
Kept quiet like; tlie snake 'neath Michael's foot 
Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe. 
Or, if that's too ambitious, — here's my box — 
I need the excitation of a pinch 
Threatening the torpor of the inside-nose 
Nigh on the imminent sneeze that never comes. 
" Leave it in peace ! " advise the simple folk : 
Make it aware of peace by itching-tits, 
Say I — let doubt occasion still more faith ! 

You'll say, once all believed, man, woman, child, 
In that dear middle-age these noodles praise. 
How you'd exult if I coidd put you back 
Six hundred years, blot out cosmogony. 
Geology, ethnology, what not 
^Greek endings, each the little passing-bell 
That signifies some faith's about to die). 
And set you square with Genesis again ! 
When such a traveller told you his last news. 
He saw the ark a-top of Ararat 
But did not <diml) tlu're since 'twas getting dusk 
And robber-bands infest the mountain's foot ! 
How should you feel, I ask, in such an age. 
How act ? As other people felt and did , 
With soul morci blank than this decanter's knob, 
Believe — and yet lie, kill, rob, fornicate 
Full in belief's face, like the beast you'd be ! 

No, when the fight begins within himself, 
A man's worth something. God stoops o'er his head, 
Satan looks up between his feet — both tug — 
He's left, himself, i' the middle : the soul wakes 
And grows. Prolong that battle through his life ! 
Never leave growing till the life to come ! 
Here we've got callous to the Virgin's winks 
That used to puzzle i)eople wholesomely : 
Men have outgrown the shame of being fools. 
What are tlu; laws of nature, not to bend 
If the Chin-ch bid lb(>m ? — brother Newman asks. 
Up with the Immnrnlate ("oncejition, then — 
On to the rack with faith ! — is my advice. 



4 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 223 



Will not that hurry us upon our knees, 

Knocking our breasts, " It can't ho — yet it shall ! 

Who am I, tlie worm, to argue with my Pope ? 

Low things confound the high things ! " and so forth. 

That's blotter than acquitting God with grace. 

As some folks do. He's tried — no case is proved, 

Philosophy is lenient — He may go ! 

You'll say, the old system's not so obsolete 
But men believe still : ay, but who and where ? 
King Bomba's lazzaroni foster yet 
The sacred flame, so Antonelli writes ; 
But even of these, wliat ragamuffin-saint 
Believes God watches him continually, 
As he believes in fire that it will burn. 
Or rain tliat it will drench him ? Break fire's law, 
Sin against rain, although the penalty 
Be just a singe or soaking ? " No," he smiles ; 
" Those laws are laws that can enforce themselves." 

Tlie sum of all is — yes, my doubt is great. 
My faith's still greater, then my faith's enough. 
I have read Tnuch, thought much, experienced much, 
Yet would die rather than avow my fear 
The Naples' liquefaction may be false. 
When s(!t to happen by the palace-clock 
According to the clomls or dinner-time. 
I hear you recommend, I might at least 
Eliminate, decrassify my faith 
Since I adopt it ; keeping what I must 
And leaving what I can — such points as this. 
I won't — that is, I can't throw one away. 
Supposing there's no truth in what I hold 
About the need of trial to man's faith, 
Still, when you bid me purify the same, 
To such a process I discern no end. 
Clearing off one excrescence to see two. 
There's ever a n(!xt in size, now grown as big, 
That meets the knife : I cut and cut again ! 
First cut the Liquefaction, what comes last 
But Fichte's clever cut at God himself ? 
Experimentalize on sacred things ! 
I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brain 
To stop betimes : they all get drunk alike. 
The first step, I am master not to take. 

You'd find the cutting-process to your taste 
As much as heaving growths of lies unpruned, 
Nor see more danger in it, — you retort. 
Your taste's worth mine ; but my taste proves more wise 
When we consider tliat the steadfast hold 
On the extreme end of the chain of faith 
Gives all the advantage, makes the difference 
With the rcugh purblind mass we seek to rule : 
We are their lords, or they are free of us, 
Just as we tighten or relax our hold. 
So, other matters equal, we'll revert 
To the first problem — which, if solved my way 
And thrown into the balance, turns the scale — 



224 BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 



How we may lead a comfortable life, 
How suit our luggage to the cabin's size. 

Of course you are remarking all this time 
How narrowly and grossly I view life, 
Respect the creature-comforts, care to rule 
The masses, and regard complacently 
" The cabin," in our old phrase. Well, I do. 
I act for, talk for, live for this world now, 
As this world prizes action, life, and talk : 
No prejudice to what next world may prove. 
Whose new laws and requirements, my best pledge 
To observe then, is that I observe these now, 
Shall do hereafter what I do meanwhile. 
Let us concede (gratuitously though) 
Next life relieves the soul of body, yields 
Pure spiritual enjoyment : well, my friend. 
Why lose this life i' the mean time, since its use 
May be to make the next life more intense ? 

Do you know, I have often had a dream 
(Work it up in your next month's article) 
Of man's poor spirit Ik its ]iron';-ess, still 
Losing true life forever and a day 
Through ever trying to be and ever being — 
In the evolution of successive spheres — 
Before its actual sphere and place of life. 
Half way into the next, which having reached, 
It shoots with corresponding foolery 
Half way into the next still, on and oiTf ! 
As when a traveller, bound from Nortli to South, 
Scouts fur in Russia ; what's its use in France ? 
In France spurns flannel ; where's its need in Spain? 
In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers ! 
Linen goes next, and last the skin itself, 
A superfluity at Timbuctoo. 

When, through his journey, was the fool at ease ? 
I'm at ease now, friend ; worldly in this world, 
I take and like its way of life ; t think 
My brothers, who administer the means. 
Live better for my comfort — that's good too ; 
And God, if he pronounce upon such life, 
Approves my service, which is better still. 
If he keep silence, — why, for you or me 
Or that brute-beast i">ulled-u]i in to-day's " Times," 
What odds is't, save to ourselves, what life we lead? 

You meet me at this issue : you declare, — 
All special-pleading done with, truth is truth, 
And justifies itself by undvdamed ways. 
You don't fear but it's better, if we doubt, 
To say so, act up to our truth perceived 
However feebly. Do then, — act away ! 
'Tis there I'm on the watch for you. How one acte 
Is, both of us agree, our chief concern : 
And how you'll act is what I fain would see 
If, like the candid person you appear, 
You dare to make the most of your life's scheme 
As I of mine, live up to its full law 



BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY. 225 



Since there's no liigher law that counterchecks. 

Put natural religion to the test 

You've just demolished the revealed with — quick, 

Down to the root of all that cheeks your will, 

All iirohibition to lie, kill, and thieve, 

Or even to be an atheistic priest ! 

Suppose a pricking to incontinence — 

Philosophers deduce j^ou chastity 

Or shanae, from just the fact that at the first 

"Whoso embracetl a woman in the field, 

Threw club down and forewent his brains beside, 

So, stood a ready victim in the reach 

Of any brother-savage, club in hand ; 

Hence saw the use of going out of sight 

In wood or cave to prosecute his loves : 

I read this in a French book t'other day. 

Does law so analyzed coerce you much ? 

Oh, men spin clouds of fuzz where matters end. 

But you who reach where the first thread begins, 

You'll soon cut that ! — which means yoii can, but won't 

Through certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out. 

You dare not set aside, you can't tell why, 

But there they are, and so you let them rule. 

Then, friend, you seem as much a slave as I, 

A liar, conscious coward and hypocrite, 

"Without the good the slave expects to get. 

In case he has a master after all ! 

You own your instincts? why, what else do I, 

"Who want, am made for, and must have a God 

Ere I can l)e aught, do aught ? — no mere name 

"Want, but the true thing with what proves its truth, 

To wit, a relation from that thing to me. 

Touching from head to foot — which touch I feel. 

And with it take the rest, this life of ours ! 

I live my life here : yours you dare not live. 

— Not as I state it, who (you please subjoin) 
Disfigure such a life and call it names, , 

"While, to your mind, remains another way 
For simple men : knowledge and power have rights. 
But ignorance and weakness have rights too. 
There needs no crucial effort to find truth 
If here or there or anywhere about : 
"We ought to turn each side, try hard and see. 
And if we can't, be glad we've earned at least 
The right, by one laliorious proof the more. 
To graze in peace earth's pleasant pasturage. 
Men are not angels, neither are they brutes : 
Something we may see, all we cannot see. 
"What need of lying? I say, I see all, 
And swear to each detail the most minute 
In what I think a Pan's face — you, mere cloud : 
I swear I hear him speak and see him wink. 
For fear, if once I drop the emphasis. 
Mankind may doubt there's any cloud at all. 
You take the simple life — ready to see, 
Willing ^o see (for no cloud's worth a face) — 
And leaving quiet what no strength can move, 
And which, who bids jou move ? who has the right? 



226 BISHOP BLOU GRAM'S APOLOGY. 



I bid you ; but you are God's sheep, not mine : 
" Pastor est tui hominus." You find 
In this the pleasant pasture of our life 
Much you may eat witliout the least offence, 
Much you don't eat because your maw objects, 
Much you would eat but that your fellow-fiock 
Open great eyes at you, and even butt. 
And thereupon you like your mates so well 
You cannot please yourself, offending them ; 
Though when they seem exorbitantly sheep, 
Yon weigh your pleasure with their butts and bleats 
And strike the balance. Sometimes certain fears 
Restrain you, real checks since you find them so ; 
Sometimes you please yourself and nothing checks : 
And thus you graze through life with not one lie, 
And like it best. 

But do you, in truth's name ? 
If so, you beat — w'hich means you are not I — 
Who needs must make earth miue and feed my fill 
Not simply unbutted at, unbickered with, 
But motioned to the velvet of the sward 
By those obsecjuious wethers' very selves. 
Look at me, sir ; my age is double yours : 
At yours, I knew beforehand, so enjoyed, 
"What now I should be — as, permit the word, 
I pretty well imagine your whole range 
And stretch of tether twenty years to come. 
"We have both minds and bodies much alike : 
In truth's name, don't you want my bishopric. 
My daily bread, my influence and my state ? 
You're young, I'm old, you must be old one day ; 
"Will you find then, as I do hour by hour, 
"Women their lovers kneel to, who cut curls 
From J our fat lap-dog's ear to grace a brooch — 
Dukes, who petition just to kiss your ring — 
"With much beside you know or may conceive ? 
Suppose we die to-night : well, here am I, 
Such were my gains, life bore this fruit to me, 
"While writing all the same my articles 
On music, poetry, the fictile vase 
Found at Albano, chess, Anacreon's Greek. 
But you — the highest honor in your life. 
The thing you'll crown yourself with, all your days, 
Is — dining here and drinking this last glass 
I pour you out in sight of amity 
Before we part forever. Of your power 
And social influence, worldly worth in short, 
Judge what's my estimation by the fact — 
I do not condescend to enjoin, beseech. 
Hint secrecy on one of all these words ! 
You're shrewd and know that should j'ou publish one 
The world would brand the lie — my enemies first, 
"Who'd sneer — " the bishop's an arch-hyjDocrite 
And knave pei'haps, but not so frank a fool." 
"Whereas I should not dare for both my ears 
Breathe one such syllable, smile one such smile, 
Before the chaplain who reflects m3'self — 
My shade's so much more potent than your flesh. 



BISHOP BLOVGRAMS APOLOGY. 227 



What's your reward, self-abnegating friend? 

Stood you confessed of those exceiUional 

And privileged great natures that dwarf mine — 

A zealot with a mad ideal in reach, 

A poet just about to print his ode, 

A statesman with a scheme to stop this war, 

An artist whose religion is his art — 

I should have nothing to object : such men 

Carry the fire, all things grow warm to them, 

Their drugget's worth my purple, they beat me. 

But you — you're just as little those as I — 

You, Gigadibs, who, thirty years of age, 

Write statedly for Blackwood's Magazine, 

Believe you see two points in Hamlet's soul 

Unseized V)y the Germans yet — which view you'll print — 

Meantime the best you have to show being still 

That lively lightsome article we took 

Almost for the true Dickens, — what's its name ? 

" The Slum and Cellar, or Whitechapel life 

Limned after dark ! " it made me laugh, I know, 

And pleased a month, and brought you in ten pounds. 

— Success I recognize and compliment, 

And therefore give you, if you choose, three words 

(The card and pencil-scratch is quite enough) 

Which whether here, in Dublin or New York, 

Will get you, prompt as at my eyebrow's wink, 

Such terms as never you aspired to get 

In all our own reviews and some not ours. 

Go write your lively sketches ! be the first 

" Blougram, or the Eccentric Confidence " - 

Or better simply say, " The Outward-bound." 

Why, men as soon would throw it in my teeth 

As copy and quote the infamy chalked broad 

About me on the church-door opposite. 

You will not wait for that experience though, 

I fancy, howsoever you decide. 

To discontinue — not detesting, not 

Defaming, but at least — despising me ! 



Over his wine so smiled and talked his hour 
Sylvester Blougram, styled inpartibus 
Episcopus, nee non — (the deuce knows what 
It's changed to by our novel hierarchy) 
With (rigadibs the literary man. 

Who played with spoons, explored his plate's design, 
And r;inged the olix'c-stones about its edge. 
While the great l)islioji rolled him out a mind 
Long rumjiled, till creased consciousness lay smooth. 

For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke. 
The other portion, as he shaped it thus 
For argumentatory jiuriioses. 
He felt his foe was foolish to dispute. 
Some arbitrary acciilental thoughts 
That crossed his mind, anmsing because new. 
He chose to represent as fixtures there, 
Invariable convictions (such they seemed 



228 MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUMS 



Beside his interlocutor's loose cards 

Flung daily down, and not the same way twice) 

Wliile certain hell-deep instincts, man's weak tongu* 

Is never hold to utter in their truth 

Because styled hell-deep ('tis an old mistake 

To place hell at the bottom of the earth) 

He ignored these, — not having in readiness 

Their nomenclature and philosophy : 

He said true things, but called them by wrong names. 

" On the whole," he thought, " I justify myself 

On every point where cavillers like this 

Oppugn my life : he tries one kind of fence, 

I close, he's worsted, that's enough for him. 

He's on the ground : if ground should break away 

I take my stand on, there's a firmer yet 

Beneath it, both of us may sink and reach. 

His ground was over mine and broke the first : 

So, let him sit with me this many a year ! " 

He did not sit five minutes. Just a week 
Sufficed his sudden healthy vehemence. 
Something had struck him in the " Outward-bound" 
Another way than Blougram's purpose was : 
And having bought, not cabin-furniture < 

But settler's implements (enough for three) 
And started for Australia — there, I hope. 
By this time he has tested his first plough. 
And studied his last chapter of Saint John. 



MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM." 

Now, don't, sir ! Don't expose me ! Just this once ! 

This was the first and only time, I'll swear, — 

Look at me, — see, I kneel, — the only time, 

I swear, I ever cheated, — yes, by the soul 

Of Her who hears — (your sainted mother, sir !) 

All, except this last accident, was truth — 

This little kind of sliii ! — and even this, 

It was your own wine, sir, the good champagne 

(I took it for Catawba, you're so kind). 

Which put the folly in my head ! 

"Get up?" 
You still inflict on me that terrible face ? 
You show no mercy ? — Not for Her dear sake, 
The sainted spirit's, whose soft breath even now 
Blows on my cheek — (don't you feel something, sir?) 
You'll tell? 

Go tell, then ! Who the Devil cares 
What such a rowdy chooses to . . . 

Aie — aie — ale ! 
Please, sir ! your thumbs are through my windpipe, sir ! 
Ch — eh! 



MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUMS 229 

Well, sir, I hope you've done it now ! 

Lord ! I little thought, sir, yesterday. 
When your departed luotlier spoke those words 

Of peace through me, and moved you, sir, so much, 

You gave me — (very kind it was of you) 

These shirt-studs — (better take them back again, 

Please, sir) — yes, little did I think so soon 

A trifle of trick, all through a glass too much 

Of his own champagne, would change my best of friends 

Into an angry gentleman ! 

Though, 'twas wrong. 

1 don't contest the point ; your anger's just : 
Whatever put such folly in my head, 

I know 'twas wicked of me. There's a thick 

Dusk undeveloped spirit (I've observed) 

Owes me a grudge — a negro's, I should say, 

Or else an Irish emigrant's ; yourself 

Explained the case so well last Sunday, sir, 

When we had summoned Franklin to clear up 

A point about those shares i' the telegraph : 

Ay, and he swore ... or might it be Tom Paine ? . . . 

Thumping the table close by where I crouched, 

He'd do me soon a mischief : that's come true ! 

Why, now your face clears ! I was sure it would ! 

Then, this one time . . . don't take your hand away, 

Through yours I surely kiss your mother's hand . . . 

You'll promise to forgive me ? — or, at least. 

Tell nobody of this ? Consider, sir ! 

What harm can mercy do ? Would but the shade 

Of the venerable dead-one just vouchsafe 

A rap or tip ! What bit of paper's here ? 

Suppose we take a pencil, let her write, 

Make the least sign, she urges on her child 

Forgiveness ? There now ! Eh ? Oh ! 'Twas your foot, 

And not a natural creak, sir ? 

Answer, then ! 
Once, twice, thrice . . . see, I'm waiting to say " thrice 1 " 
All to no use ? No sort of hope for me ? 
It's all to post to Greeley's newspaper? 

What ? If I told you all about the tricks ? 

Upon my soul ! — the whole truth, and naught else. 

And how there's been some falsehood — for your part, 

Will you engage to jjay my passage out, 

And hold your tongue until I'm safe on board ? 

England's the place, not Boston —no offence ! 

I see what makes you hesitate : don't fear ! 

I mean to change my trade and cheat no more, 

Yes, this time really it's upon my soul ! 

Be my salvation ! — under heaven, of course. 

I'll tell some queer things. Sixty Vs must do. 

A trifle, though, to start with ! We'll refer 

The question to this table ? 

How you're changed ! 
Then split the difference ; thirty more, we'll say. 
Ay, but you leave my presents ! Else I'll swear 



230 MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM:' 

'Twas all tljrough those : you wanted yours again, 

So, picked a quarrel with me, to get them back ! 

Tread on a worm, it turns, sir ! If I turn, 

Your fault ! 'Tis you'll have forced me ! Who's obliged 

To give up life yet try no self-defence ? 

At all events, I'll run the risk. Eh ? 

Done ! 
May I sit, sir ? This dear old table, now ! 
Please, sir, a parting egg-nogg and cigar ! 
I've been so happy with you ! Nice stuffed chairs, 
And sympathetic sideboards ; what an end 
To all the instructive eveniugs ! (It's alight.) 
Well, nothing lasts, as Bacon came and said. 
Here goes, — but keep your temper, or I'll scream ! 

Fol-lol-the-rido-liddle-iddle-ol ! 

You see, sir, it's your own fault more than mine ; 

It's all your fault, you curious gentlefolk ! 

You're prigs, — excuse me, — like tro look so spry, 

So clever, while you cling by half a claw 

To the perch whereon you puff yourselves at roost, 

Such piece of self-conceit as serves for perch 

Because you chose it, so it must be safe. 

Oh, otherwise you're sharp enough ! You spy 

Who slips, who slides, who holds by help of wing, 

Wanting real foothold, — who can't keep upright 

On the other perch, your neighbor chose, not you : 

There s no outwitting you respecting hiu] ! 

For instance, men love money — that, you know — 

And what men do to gain it : well, suppose 

A poor lad, say a help's son in your house. 

Listening at keyholes, hears the comj^any 

Talk grand of dollars, V-notes, and so forth. 

How hard they are to get, how good to hold, 

How much they buy, — if, suddenly, in jaops he — 

" I've got a V-note ! " — what do you say to him ? 

What's your first word which follows your last kick? 

" Where did you steal it, rascal ? " That's because 

He finds you, fain would fool you, off your perch. 

Not on the special piece of nonsense, sir. 

Elected your parade-ground : let him try 

Lies to the end of the list, — " He picked it up. 

His cousin died and left it him by will, 

The President flung it to him, riding by. 

An actress trucked it for a curl of his hair, 

He dreamed of luck and found his shoe enriched, 

He dug up clay, and out of clay made gold " — 

How would you treat such possibilities ? 

Would not you, prompt, investigate the case 

With cow-hide ? " Lies, lies, lies," you'd shout : and why ? 

Which of tlie stories might not prove mere truth ? 

This last, perhaps, that clay was turned to coin ! 

Let's see, now, give him me to speak for him ! 

How many of your rare philosophers. 

In plaguy books I've had to dip into. 

Believed gold could be made thus, saw it made. 

And made it ? Oh, with such philosophers 

You're on your best behavior ! While the iad — 



MR. SLUDGI' ''the MEDIUMS 231 



^Yitll him, in a trice, you settle likelihoods, 
Nor doubt a moment how he got his prize : 
In his case, you hear, judge, and execute, 
All in a breath : so would most men of sense. 

But let the same lad hear you talk as grand 

At the same keyhole, you and company. 

Of signs and wonders, the invisible world ; 

How wisdom scouts our vulgar unbelief 

More than our vulgarest credulity ; 

How good men liave desired to see a ghost. 

What Johnson used to say, what Wesley did, 

Mother Goose thought, and liddle-diddle-dee : — 

If he then break in with, " Sir, /saw a ghost ! " 

Ah, the ways change ! He finds you perched and prim ; 

It's a conceit of yours that ghosts may 1)6 : 

There's no talk now of cow-hide. " Tell it out ! 

Don't fear us ! Take your time and recollect ! 

Sit down first ; try a glass of wine, my boy ! 

And, David, (is not that your Christian name?) 

Of all things, should this happen twice, — it may, — 

Be sure, while fresh in mind, you let us know ! " 

Does tlie boy blunder, blurt out this, blab that. 

Break down in the other, as beginners will ? 

All's candor, all's considerateness, — " No haste ! 

Pause and collect yourself ! We understand ! 

That's the bad memory, or the natural shock, 

Or the unexplained jj/ie/iome;ia / " 

Egad, 
The boy takes heart of grace ; finds, never fear, 
The readiest way to ope your own heart wide. 
Show — what I call your peacock-perch, pet post 
"To strut, and spread the tail, and squawk upon ! 
" Just as you thought, nuich as you might expect ! 
There l>e more tliiiigs in heaven and earth, Horatio," . . 
And so on. Shall hot David take the hint. 
Grow bolder, stroke you down at quickened rate? 
If he rnttle a feather, it's " Gently, patiently ! 
Manifestations are so weak at first ! 
Doubting, moreover, kills them, cuts all short, 
Cures with a vengeance ! " 

There, sir, that's your style I 
You and your boy — such pains bestowed on him, 
Or any headpiece of the average worth. 
To teach, say, Greek, would perfect him apace. 
Make him a Person (" Porson ? " thank you, sir !) 
Much more, proficient in the art of lies. 
You never leave tlie lesson ! Fire alight. 
Catch yon permitting it to die ! You've friends ; 
There's no withholding knowledge, — least from those 
Apt to look elsewhere for their soul's supply : 
Why should not you parade your lawful prize ? 
Who finds a picture, digs a medal up, 
Hits on a first edition, — he henceforth 
Gives it his name, grows notable : how much more 
Who ferrets out a " medium " ? " David's yours, 
You highly favored man ? Then, pity souls 



232 MR. SLUDGE, " THE MEDIUM." 

Less privileged ! Allow us share your luck ! " 
So, David holds the circle, rules the roast. 
Narrates the vision, peeps in the glass ball, 
Sets-to the spirit-writing, hears the raps, 
As the case may be. 

Now mark ! To be precise, — 
Though I saj', " lies " all these, at this first stage, 
'Tis just lor science' sake : I call such grubs 
By the name of what they'll turn to, dragonflies. 
Strictly, it's what good people style untruth ; 
But yet, so far, not quite the full-grown thing : 
It's fancying, fable-making, nonsense-work, — 
What never meant to be so very bad, — 
The knack of story-telling, brightening up 
Each dull old bit of fact that drops its shine. 
One does see somewhat when one shuts one's eyes, 
If only spots and streaks ; tables do tip 
In the oddest way of themselves : and pens, good Lord, 
Who knows if you drive them or they drive you? 
'Tis but a foot in the water and out again ; 
Not that duck-under which decides your dive. 
Note this, for it's important : listen why. 

I'll prove, you push on David till he dives 

And ends the shivering. Here's your circle, now : 

Two-thirds of them, with heads like you their host, 

Turn up their eyes, and cry, as you expect, 

" Lord, who'd have thought it ! " But there's always oue 

Looks wise, comjiassionaiely smiles, submits 

" Of your veracity no kind of doubt. 

But — do you feel so certain of that boy's? 

Really, I wonder ! I confess myself 

More chary of my faith ! " That's galling, sir ! 

What ! he the investigator, he the sage. 

When all's done ? Then, you just have shut your eyes, 

Opened your mouth, and gulped down David whole. 

You ! Terrible were such catastrophe ! 

So, evidence is redoubled, doubled again. 

And doubled besides ; once more, " He heard, we heard, 

You and they heard, your mother and your wife. 

Your children and tlu^ stranger in your gates : 

Did tliey, or did they not?" So much for him, 

The black sheep, guest without the wedding-garb. 

And doubting "Thomas ! Now's your turn to crow : 

" He's kind to think you such a fool : Sludge cheats ? 

Leave you alone to take jirecautions ! " 

Straight 
The rest join chorus. Thomas stands abashed. 
Sips silent some such beverage as this. 
Considers if it be harder, shutting eyes 
And gulping David in good fellowship, 
Than going elsewhere, getting, in exchange, 
With no egg-nogg to lubricate the food. 
Some just as tough a moi-sel. Over the way. 
Holds Cajitain Sparks his court : is it better there ? 
Have not you hunting-stories, scalping-scenes, 
And Mexican War exploits to swallow plump 
If you'd be free o' the stove-side, rocking-chair, 
And trio of affable daughters ? 



MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM." 233 

Doubt succumbs 1 
Victory ! All your circle's yours again ! 
Out of the clubbing of submissive wits, 
David's performance rounds, each chink gets patched, 
Every protrusion of a point's filed fine, 
AU'sfit to set a-rolliiig round the world, 
And then return to David finally. 
Lies seven-feet thick about his first half-inch. 
Here's a choice birth o' the supernatural. 
Poor David's pledged to ! You've employed no tool 
That laws exclaim at, save the Devil's own. 
Yet screwed him into henceforth gulling you 
To the top o' your bent, — all out of one half-lie ! 

You hold, if there's one half or a hundredth part 
Of a lie, that's his fault, — his be the penalty ! 
I dare say ! You'd prove firmer in liis ]ilace ? 
You'd fin<l the courage, — that first flurry over, 
That mild bit of romancing-work at end, — 
To interpose with " It gets serious, this ; 
Must atop here. Sir, I saw no ghost at all. 
Inform your friends I made . . . well, fools of them^ 
And found you ready made. I've lived in clover 
These three weeks : take it out in kicks of me ! " 
I doubt it. Ask your conscience ! Let me know, 
Twelve months hence, with how few embellishments 
You've told almighty Boston of this passage 
Of arms between us, your first taste o' the foil 
From Sludge who could not fence, sir ! Sludge, your boyl 
I lied, sir, — there ! I got up from my gorge 
On offal in the gutter, and preferred 
Your canvas-backs : I took their carver's size, 
Measured his modicum of intelligence. 
Tickled him on the cockles of his heart 
"With a raven feather, and next week found myself 
Sweet and clean, dining daintily, dizened smart, 
Set on a stool buttressed by ladies' knees. 
Every soft smiler calling me her pet, 
Encouraging my story to uncoil 
And creep out from its hole, inch after inch, 
" How last night, I no sooner snug in bed, 
Tucked up, just as they left me, — than came raps ! 
"While a light whisked " . . . " Shaped somewhat like a star? " — 
""Well, like some sort of stars, ma'am," — " So we thought 1 
And any voice ? Not yet ? Try hard next time, 
If you can't hear a voice ; we think you may : 
At least, the Pennsylvanian ' mediums ' did." 
Oh, next time comes the A'oice ! " Just as we hoped 1 '' 
Are not the hopers proud now, pleased, profuse 
O' the natural acknowledgment ? 

Of course ! 
So, off we push, illy-oh-yo, trim the boat, 
On we sweep with a cataract ahead, 
"We're midway to the Horse-shoe : stop, who can, 
The dance of bul)bles gay about our prow I 
Experiences become worth waiting for, 
Spirits now speak up, tell their inmost mind. 
And compliment the " medium " properly. 



234 MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM:' 

Concern themselves about his Sunday coat, 

See rings on his hand with jileasure. Ask yourself 

How you'd receive a course of treats like these ! 

Why, take the quietest hack and stall hira up, 

Cram him with corn a month, then out with him 

Among his mates on a briglit April morn, 

With the turf to tread ; see if you find or no 

A caper in him, if he bucks or bolts ! 

Much more a youth whose fancies sprout an rank 

As toadstool-clnmp from melon-bed. 'Tis soon, 

" Sirrah, you spirit, come, go, fetch and carry, 

Read, write, rap, rub-a-dub, and hang yourself ! " 

I'm spared all further trouble ; all's arranged ; 

Your circle does my business ; I may rave 

Like an epileptic dervish in the books, 

Foam, fling myself flat, rend my clothes to shreds ; 

No matter : lovers, friends, and countrj-men 

Will lay down spiritual laws, read wrong things right 

By the rule o' reverse. If Francis Verulam 

Styles himself Bacon, spells the name beside 

With a y and a k, says lie drew breath in York, 

Gave up the ghost in Wales when Cromwell reigned 

(As, sir, we somewhat fear he was apt to say, 

Before I found the useful l:)ook that knows), 

Why, what harm's done ? The circle smiles apace, 

" It was not Bacon, after all, do you see ! 

We understand ; the trick's but natural ; 

Such spirits' individuality 

Is hard to put in evidence : they incline 

To gibe and jeer, these undeveloped sorts. 

You see, their world's much like a jail broke loose, 

While this of ours remains shut, T)olted, barred, 

With a single window to it. Sludge, our friend, 

Serves as this window, whether thin or thick, 

Or stained or stainless ; he's the medium-pane 

Through which, to sec us and he seen, they peep : 

They crowd each other, hustle for a chance. 

Tread on their neighlxn-'s kibes, play tricks enough ! 

Does Bacon, tired of waiting, swerve aside? 

Up in his place jumps Barnum — ' I'm your man, 

I'll answer you for JBacon ! ' Try once more ! " 

Or else it's — " What's a ' medium ? ' He's a means, 

Good, bad, indifferent, still the only means 

Spirits can speak by ; he may misconceive, 

Stutter, and stamnier, — he's their Sludge and drudge; 

Take him or leave him ; they nmst hold their peace, 

Or else, put up with having knowledge strained 

To half-expression through his ignorance. 

Suppose, the spirit Beethoven wants to shed 

New music he's lirimful of ; why, he turns 

The handle of this organ, grinds with Sludge, 

And what he poured in at the mouth o' the mill 

As a Thirty-third Sonata, (fancy now !) 

Comes from the hopjier as brand-new Sludge, naught else. 

The Shakers' Hymn in G, with a natural F, 

Or the ' Stars and Stripes ' set to consecutive fourths." 

Sir, Where's the scraj)e you did not help me through. 






MR. SLUDGE, "THE .MEDIUM.'' 235 

You that are wise ? And for the fools, the folk 

Who came to see, — the guests, (observe that word !) 

Pray do you find guests criticise your wine, 

Your furniture, your grammar, or your nose ? 

Then, why your " medium " ? What's the difference ? 

Prove your Madeira red-ink and gamboge, — 

Your Sludge, a cheat — then somebody's a goose 

For vaunting both as genuine. " Guests ! " Don't fear I 

They'll make a wry face, not too much of that. 

And leave you in your glory. 

" No, sometimes 
They doubt and say as much ! " Ay, doubt they do ! 
And what's the consequence ? " Of course they doubt " — 
(You triumph) " that explains the hitch at once ! 
Doubt posed our ' medium,' puddled his pure mind ; 
He gave them back their rubbish : pitch chaff in, 
Could flour come out o' the honest mill ? " So, prompt 
Applaud the faithful : cases flock in point, 
" How, when a mocker willed a ' medium ' once 
Should name a spirit James whose name was George, 
' James ' cried the ' medium,' — 'twas the test of truth ! " 
In short, a hit proves much, a miss proves more. 
Does this convince ? The better : does it fail ? 
Time for the double-shotted broadside, then — 
The grand means, last resource. Look black and big I 
"You style us idiots, therefore — why stop short? 
Accomplices in rascality : this we hear 
In our own house, from our invited guest 
Found brave enough to outrage a poor boy 
Exposed l>y our good faith ! Have you been heard ? 
Now, then, hear us ; one man's not quite worth twelve. 
You see a cheat ? Here's some twelve see an ass : 
Excuse me if I calculate : good day ! " 
Out slinks the sceptic, all the laughs explode, 
Sludge waves his hat in triumph ! 

Or — he don't. 
There's something in real truth (explain who can !) 
One casts a wistful eye at, like the liorse 
Who mo]ies beneath stuffed hay-racks and won't munch 
Because- he spies a corn-bag : hang that truth, 
It spoils all dainties proffered in its place ! 
I've felt at times when, cockered, cossetted, 
And coddled by the aforesaid company, 
Bidden enjoy their bullying — never fear. 
But o'er tluiir shoulders spit at the flying man, — 
I've felt a child ; only, a fractious child 
That, dandled soft by nurse, aunt, grandmother, 
Who keep him from the kennel, sun, and wind. 
Good fun and wholesome mud, — enjoined be sweet, 
And comely and sujierior, — eyes askance 
The ragged sons o' the gutter at their game, 
Fain would be down with them i' the thick o' the filth, 
Making dirt-pies, laughing free, speaking plain. 
And calling granny the gray old cat she is. 
I've felt a spite, I say, at you, at them, 
Huggings and humbug — gnashed my teeth to mark 
A decent dog pass ! It's too bad, I say, 
Kuining a soul so ! 



236 MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM. 



But what's " so," what's fixed, 
Where may one stop ? Nowhere ! The cheating's nursed 
Out of the lying, softly and surely spun 
"To just your length, sir ! I'd sto]i soon enough : 
But you're for progress. " All old, nothing new ? 
Only the usual talking through the mouth. 
Or writing by the hand ? I own, I thought 
This would develop, grow demonstrable, 
Make doubt absurd, give figures we might see, 
Flowers we miglit touch. There's no one doubts you, Sludge I 
You dream the dreams, you see the spiritual sights, 
The speeches come in your head, beyond disjiute. 
Still, for the sceptics' sake, to stop all mouths, 
We want some outward manifestation ! —well, 
The Pennsylvanians gained such ; why not Sludge ? 
He may hnprove with time ! " 

Ay, that he may ! 
He sees his lot : there's no avoiding fate. 
'Tis a trifle at first. " Eh, David ? Did you hear ? 
You jogged the table, your foot caused the squeak, 
Tliis time you're . . . joking, are you not, my boy ? " — 
" N-n-no ! " — and I'm done fo-r, bought and sold henceforth. 
The old good easy jog-trot way, the . . . eh ? 
The . . . not so very false, as falsehood goes, 
The spinning out and drawing fine, you know, — 
Really mere novel-writing of a sort, 
Acting, or improvising, make-believe. 
Surely not downright cheatery, — any how, 
'Tis done with and my lot cast ; Cheat's my name : 
The fatal dash of brandy in your tea 
Has settled how you'll have the Souchong smack : 
The caddy gives way to the dram-bottle. 

Then, it's so cruel easy ! Oh, those tricks 

That can't be tricks, those feats by sleight of hand, 

Clearly no common conjurer's ! — no, indeed ! 

A conjurer? Choose me any craft i' the world 

A man puts hand to ; and with six months' pains, 

I'll play you twenty tricks miraculous 

To people untaught the trade. Have you seen glass blown; 

Pipes pierced ? Why, just this biscuit that I chip, 

Did you ever watch a baker toss one fiat 

To tiie oven ? Try and do it ! Take my word, 

Practise but half as much, while limljs are lithe, 

To turn, shove, tilt a table, crack your joints. 

Manage your feet, dispose your hands aright. 

Work wires that twitch the curtains, play the glove 

At end o' your slipper, — then put out the lights 

And . . . there, tliere, all you waiit you'll get, I hope I 

I found it slip, easy as an old shoe. 

Now, lights on table again ! I've done ray part, 

You take my place while I give thanks and rest. 

" Well, Judge Humgruffin, what's your verdict, sir? 

You, hardest head in the United States, — 

Did you detect a cheat here ? Wait ! Let's see ! 

Just an experiment first, for candor's sake ! 

I'll try and cheat you, Judge ! The table tilts : 



MR. SLUDGE, ''TflE MEDIUM.-" 237 

Is it I that move it ? Write ! I'll press your hand : 
Cry when I push, or fjnide your pencil, Judge ! " 
Sludge still triumphant ! " That a rap, indeed ? 
That the real writing? Very like a whale ! 
Then, if, sir, you — a most distinguished man. 
And, were the Judge not here, I'd say, ... no matter I 
Well, sir, if you fail, yon can't take us in, — 
There's little fear that Sludge will ! " 

Won't he, ma'am ? 
But what if our distinguished host, like Sludge, 
Bade God hear witness that he played no trick. 
While you believed that what produced the raps 
Was just a certain child who died, you know. 
And whose last breath you thought your lips had felt ? 
Eh ? That's a capital point, ma'am : Sludge begins 
At your entreaty with your dearest dead. 
The little voice set lisping once again, 
The tiny hand made feel for yours once more, 
The poor lost image brought back, plain as dreams, 
Which image, if a word had chanced recall. 
The customary cloud would cross your eyes. 
Your heart return the old tick, pay its pang ! 
A right mood for investigation, this ! 
One's at one's ease with Saul and Jonathan, 
Pompey and Ca3sar : but one's own lost child . . , 
I wonder, when you heard the first clod drop 
From the spadeful at the grave, did you feel free 
To investigate wlio twitched your funeral scarf, 
Or brushed your flounces ? Then, it came of course 
You should be stunned and stujiid ; then (how else?) 
Your breath stopped with your blood, your brain struck work, 
But now, such causes fail of such effects. 
All's changed, — the little voice begins afresh, 
Yet you, calm, consequent, can test and try 
And touch the truth. " Tests ? Didn't the creature tell 
Its nurse's name, and say it lived six years. 
And rode a rocking-horse ? Enough of tests ! 
Sludge never could learn that ! " 

He could not, eh ? 
You compliment him " Could not V " Speak for yourself 1 
I'd like to know the man I ever saw 

Once, — never mind where, how, why, when, — once saw, 
Of whom I do not keep some matter treasured 
He'd swear I " could not " know, sagacious soul ! 
What? Do you live in tliis world's blow of blackg, 
PalaA'er, gossipry, a single hour 
Nor find one smut has settled on your nose, 
Of a smut's worth, no more, no less ? — one fact 
Out of the drift of facts, whereby you learn 
What some one was, somewhere, somewhen, somewh^? 
You don't tell folk — " See what has stuck to me ! 
Judge Humgruffin, our most distinguished man, 
Your uncle was a tailor, and your wife 
Thought to have married Miggs, missed him, hit you ! " — 
Do you, sir, though you see him twice a week ? 
" No," you reply, " what use retailing it ? 
Why should I ? " But, you see, one day you should. 



238 MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM." 

Because one day tliere's much use, — Avhen this fact 
Brings you the Judge ui)on both gouty knees 
Before the supernatural ; proves tluit Sludge 
Knows, as you say, a thing he " could not " know : 
Will not Sludge thenceforth keep an outstretched face 
The way the wind drives ? 

" Could not ! " Look you now. 
I'll tell you a story ! There's a w^hiskered chap, 
A foreigner, that teaches music here 
And gets liis bread, — knowing no better way. 
He says, the fellow who informed of him 
And made him rty his country and fall West, 
Was a hunchback cobbler, sat, stitched soles, and sang, 
In some outlandish place, the city Rome, 
In a cellar by their Broadway, ail day long ; 
Never asked questions, stopped to listen or look, 
Nor lifted nose from lapstone ; let the world 
Roll round liis tiiree-legged stool, and news run in 
The ears h(! hardly seemed to keep prii^ked up. 
Well, that man went on Sundays, touched liis pay, 
And took his praise from government, you see ; 
For something like two dollars every week. 
He'd engage tell you some one little thing 
Of some one man, which led to many more 
(Because one trutli leads right to the world's end), 
And make you that man's master — when he dined 
And on what dish, where walked to keei) his health, 
And to what street. His trade was, throwing thus 
His sense out, like an anteater's long tongue. 
Soft, innocent, warm, moist, impassil)le. 
And when 'twas crusted o'er with creatures — slick. 
Their juice enriched his palate. " Could not Sludge ! " 
I'll go yet a step farther, and maintain, 
Once the imposture plunged its proper depth 
I' the rotten of your luxtures, all of you — 
(If one's not mad nor drunk, and hardly then). 
It's impossible to cheat —that's, be found out ! 
Go tell your brotherliood tliis first slip of mine, 
All to-day's tale, how you detected Sludge, 
Behaved unpleasantly, till he was fain confess, 
And so has come to grief ! You'll find, I think. 
Why Sludge still snaps his fingers in your face. 
There now, you've told them ! What's their prompt reply? 
" Sir, did that youth confess he had clicated me, 
I'd disbelieve him. He may cheat at times ; 
That's in the ' medium '-nature, thus they're made, 
Vain and vindictive, cowards, prone to scratch. 
And so all cats are ; still a cat's, the beast 
You coax the strange electric sparks from out. 
By rubbing back its fur ; not so a dog. 
Nor lion, nor lamb : 'tis the cat's nature, sir ! 
Why not the dog's ? Ask God, who made them beasts ! 
D'ye tliink the sound, the nicely balanced man 
Like me " — (aside) — " like you yourself," — (aloud) 
— " He's stuff to make a ' medium ' ? Bless your soul, 
'Tis these hysteric, hybrid half-and-halfs. 
Equivocal, worthless vermin yield tlu; fire ! 
We must take such as we find them, 'ware their tricks. 



MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUMS 239 

Wanting their service. Sir, Sludge took in you — 
How, I can't say, not being there to watch : 
He was tried, was tempted by your easiness, — 
He did not take in me ! " 

Tliank yon for Sludge ! 
I'm to be grateful to such patrons, eh, 
When what you hear's my best word ? 'Tis a challenge : 
" Snap at all strangers, lialf-tamed prairie-dog, 
So you cower duly at your keeper's nod ! 
Cat, show what claws were made for, muffling them 
Only to rae ! Cheat others if you can. 
Me, if you dare ! " And, my wise sir, I dared — 
Did cheat you first, made you cheat others next, 
And had tlie help o' your vaunted manliness 
To bully the incredulous. You used me ? 
Have not I used you, taken full revenge. 
Persuaded folk they knew not their own name. 
And straight they'd own the error ! Who was the fool 
When, to an awe-struck wide-eyed open-mouthed 
Circle of sages. Sludge would introduce 
Milton composing baby-rhymes, and Locke 
Reasoning in gibberish. Homer writing Greek 
In naughts and crosses, Asaph setting psalms 
To crotchet and quaver ? I've made a sjiirit squeak 
In sham voice for a minute, then outbroke 
Bold in my own, defying the imbeciles — 
Have copied some ghost's pothooks, half a page. 
Then ended with my own scrawl undisguised. 
" All right ! The ghost was merely using Sludge, 
Suiting itself from his imperfect stock ! " 
Don't talk of gratitude to me ! For what? 
For being treated as a showman's ape. 
Encouraged to be wicked and make sport. 
Fret or sulk, grin or whimper, any mood 
So long as the ape be in it and no man — 
Because a nut pays every mood alike. 
Curse j'our superior, superintending sort, 
Who, since you hate smoke, send up bo.ys that climb 
To cure your chimney, bid a " medium " lie 
To sweep you truth down ! Curse your women too. 
Your insolent wives and daughters, that fire up 
Or faint away if a male hand squeeze theirs, 
Yet, to encourage Sludge, may play with Sludge 
As only a " mediunj," only the kind of thing 
They must humor, fondle . . . oh, to misconceive 
Were too preposterous ! But I've paid them out ! 
They've had their wish — called for the naked truth, 
And in she tripped, sat down, and l)ade them stare : 
They had to blush a little and forgive ! 
" The fact is, children talk so ; in next world 
All our conventions are reversed, — perhaps 
Made light of ; something like old prints, my dear ! 
The Judge has one, he brought from Italy, 
A metropolis in the background, — o'er a bridge, 
A team of trotting roadsters, — cheerful groups 
Of wayside travellers, peasants at their work, 
And, full in front, quite unconcerned, why not? 
Three nymphs conversing with a cavalier, 



240 MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM.'' 



And never a rag among them : ' fine,' folk cry — 

And heavenly manners seem not much unlike ! 

Let Sludge go on : we'll fancy it's in print ! " 

If such as came lor wool, sir, went home shorn, 

Where is the wrong I did them ? 'Twas their choice : 

They tried the adventure, ran the risk, tossed up 

And lost, as some one's sure to do in games ; 

They fancied I was made to lose, — smoked glass 

Useful to spy the sun through, spare their eyes : 

And had I proved a red-hot iron plate 

They thought to pierce, and, for their pains, grew blind, 

Whose were the fault but theirs ? While, as things go, 

Their loss amounts to gain, the more's the shame ! 

They've had their peep into the spirit-world. 

And all this world may know it ! They've fed fat 

Their self-conceit which else had starved : what chance 

Save this, of cackling o'er a golden egg 

And comjiassing distinction from the riock. 

Friends of a Aiather? Well, they paid for it, 

And not prodigiously ; the price o' tlie ]ilay, 

Not countiug certain pleasant interludes, 

Was scarce a vulgar play's worth. When you buy 

The actor's talent, do you dare propose 

For his soul beside ? SVhereas, my soul you buy ! 

Sludge acts Macbeth, obliged to be Macbeth, 

Or you'll not hear his first word ! Just go through 

That slight formality, swear himself's the Thane, 

And thenceforth he may strut and fret his hour, 

Spout, sprawl, or spin his target, no one cares ! 

Why hadn't I leave to play tricks. Sludge as Sludge ? 

Enough of it all ! I've wiped out scores with you — 

Vented your fustian, let myself be streaked 

Like tom-fool with your ochre and carmine, 

Worn patchwork your respectable fingers sewed 

To metamorphose somebody, — yes, I've earned 

My wages, swallowed down my bread of shame, 

And shake the crumbs off — where but in your face ? 

As for religion — why, I served it, sir ! 
I'll stick to that ! With my phenomena 
I laid the atheist sprawling on his back. 
Propped up Saint Paul, or, at least, SwedenborgI 
In fact, it's just the proper way to balk 
These troublesome fellows — liars, one and all. 
Are not these sceptics ? Well, to baflle them, 
No use in being s(]ueamish : lie yourself ! 
Erect your buttress just as wide o' the line. 
Your side, as they've built up the wall on theirs ; 
Where both meet, midway in a point, is truth, 
High overhead : so, take your room, pile bricks. 
Lie ! Oh, there's titillation in all shame ! 
What snow may lose in white, it gains in rose ! 
Miss Stokes t\irns — Rahab, — nor a bad exchange ! 
Glory ))e on her, for the good she wrought, 
Breeding belief anew 'neath ribs of death, 
Brow-beating now the unabashed before. 
Ridding us of their whole life's gathered straws 
By a live coal from the altar ! Why, of old. 
Great men spent years and years in writing book* 



MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM:' 24! 



To prove we'vp souls, and hardly proved it then : 

Miss Stokes witli her live coal, for you and me ! 

Surely, to this good issue, all was fair — 

Not only fondling Sludge, liut, even suppose 

He let escape some spice of knavery, — well, 

In wisely being blind to it ! Don't you praise 

Nelson for setting spy-glass to blind eye 

And saying . . . what was it — that he could not see 

The signal he was bothered with ? Ay, indeed ! 

I'll go beyond : there's a real love of a lie, 

Liars find ready-made for lies they make, 

As hand for glove, or tongue for sugai'-plum. 

At best, 'tis never pure and full belief ; 

Those farthest in the quagmire, — don't suppose 

They straj'ed there with no warning, got no chance 

Of a filth-speck i)i their face, which tliej' clinched teeth, 

Bent brow against ! Be sure they had their doubts, 

And fears, and fairest challenges to try 

The floor o' the seeming solid sand ! But no ! 

Their faith was pledged, acquaintance too apprised. 

All but the last step ventured, kerchiefs waved, 

And Sludge called " pet : " 'twas easier marching on 

To the promised land ; join those who, Thursday next, 

Meant to meet Shakspeare ; better follow Sludge — 

Prudent, oh sure ! — on the alert, how else ? 

But making for the mid-bog, all the same ! 

To hear your outcries, one would think I caught 

Miss Stokes by the scuff o' the neck, and pitched her fiat, 

Foolish-face-foremost ! Hear these simpletons, 

That's all I lieg, Ijefore my work's begun. 

Before I've touched them with my finger-tip ! 

Thus they await me (do but listen, now ! 

It's reasoning, this is, — I can't imitate 

The baby voice, though) "In so many tales 

Must be some truth, truth though a pin-point big, 

Yet, some : a single man's deceived, perhaps — 

Hardly, a thousand : to supjiose one cheat 

Can gull all these, were more miraculous far 

Than aught we should confess a miracle " — 

And so on. Then the Judge sums up —(it's rare) 

Bids you resjiect the authorities that leap 

To the judgment-seat at once, — why, don't you not« 

The limpid natui-e, the unblemished life. 

The spotless honor, indisputable sense 

Of the first upstart with his story? What — 

Outrage a boy on whom you ne'er till now 

Set eyes, because he finds raps trouble him ? 

Fools, these are : ay, and how of their opposites 
Who never did, at bottom of their hearts, 
Believe for a moment ? — Men emasculate. 
Blank of belief, who played, as eunuchs use, 
With superstition safely, — cold of blood. 
Who saw what made for them i' the mystery, 
Took their occasion, and supported Sludge 

— As proselytes ? No, thank you, far too shrewd ! 

— But promisers of fair play, encouragers 

O' th« claimant ; who in candor needs must hoist 



242 MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM." 

Sludge up on Mars' Hill, get speech out of Sludge 

To carry off, criticise, and cant about I 

Didn't Athens treat Saint Paul so ? — at any rate, 

It's " a new thing," philosophy fumbles at. 

Then there's the other picker out of pearl 

From dung-heaps, — ay, your literary man, 

Who draws on his kid gloves to deal with Sludge 

Daintily and discreetly, — shakes a dust 

O' the doctrine, flavors thence, he well knows how, 

The narrative or the novel, — half-believes. 

All for the book's sake, and the public's stare, 

And the casli that's God's sole solid in this world ! 

Look at him ! Try to be too bold, too gross 

For the master ! Not you ! He's the man for muck ; 

Shovel it forth, full-splash, he'll smooth your brown 

Into artistic richness, never fear ! 

Find him the crude stuff ; when you recognize 

Your lie again, you'll doff your hat to it. 

Dressed out for company ! " For company," 

I say, since there's the relish of success : 

Let all pay due respect, call the lie truth, 

Save the soft, silent, smirking gentleman 

Who ushered in the stranger : you must sigh 

" How melancholy, he, the only one 

Fails to perceive the bearing of the truth 

Himself gave birth to ! " — There's the triumph's smack! 

That man would choose to see the whole world roll 

I' the slime o' the slough, so he might touch the tip 

Of his brush with what I call the best of browns — 

Tint ghost^tales, spirit-stories, past the power 

Of the outworn umber and bistre ! 

Yet I think 

There's a more hateful form of foolery — 

The social sage's, Solomon of saloons 

And philosophic diner-out, the fribble 

Who wants a doctrine for a chopping-block 

To try the edge of his faculty upon. 

Prove how much common sense he'll hack and hew 

I' the critical minute 'twixt the soup and fish ! 

These were my patrons : these, and the like of them 

Who, rising in my soul now, sicken it, — 

These I have injured ! Gratitude to these ? 

The gratitude, forsooth, of a prostitute 

To the greenhorn and the bully — friends of hers, 

From the wag tliat wants the queer jokes for his clubi 

To the snuff-box-decorator, honest man. 

Who just was at his wits' end where to find 

So genial a Pasiphae ! All and each 

Pay, compliment, protect from the police. 

And how she hates them for their pains, like me I 

So much for my remorse at thanklessness 

Toward a deserving public I 

But, for God ? 

Ay, that's a question ! Well, sir, since you press — 
(How you do teaze the whole thing out of me ! 
I don't mean you, j^ou know, when I say, "them : '' 
Hate you, indeed ! But that Miss Stokes, that Judge I 



MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUMS 248 

Enough, enough — with sugar : thank you, sir !) 

Now For it then ! Will you believe me, though ? 

You've heard what I confess ; I don't unsay 

A single word : I cheated wlien I could, 

Rapped with my toe-joints, set sham hands at work, 

Wrote down names weak in sympathetic ink, 

Rubbed odic lights with ends of phosphor-match. 

And all the rest ; believe that : believe this, 

By the same token, though it seem to set 

The crooked straight again, unsay the said, 

Stick up what I've thrown down ; I can't help that, 

It's truth ! 1 somehow vomit truth to-day. 

This trade of mine — I don't know, can't be sure 

But there was something in it, tricks and all ! 

Really, I want to light up my own mind. 

They were tricks, — true, but what I mean to add 

Is also true. First, — don't it strike you, sir ? 

Go back to the beginning, — the first fact 

We're taught is, there's a world beside this world, 

With spirits, uot mankind, for tenantry ; 

That much within that world once sojourned here, 

That all upon this world will visit there, 

And therefore that we, bodily here below, 

Must have exactly such an interest 

In learning what may be the ways o' the world 

Above us, as the disembodied folk 

Have (by all analogic likelihood) 

In watching how things go in the old world 

With us, their sons, successors, and what not. 

Oh, yes, with added powers probably. 

Fit for the novel state, — old loves grown pure, 

Old interests understood aright, — they watch ! 

Eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to help, 

Proportionate to advancement : they're ahead. 

That's all — do what we do, but noblier done — 

Use ijlate, whereas we eat our meals off delf 

(To use a figure). 

Concede that, and I ask 
Next what may be the mode of intercourse 
Between us men here, and those once-men there? 
First comes the Bible's speech ; then, history 
With the supernatural element, — you know — 
All that we sucked in with our mothers' milk, 
Grew up with, got inside of us at last. 
Till it's found bone of bone and flesh of flesh. 
See now, we start with the miraculous. 
And know it used to be, at all events : 
What's the first step we take, and can't but take. 
In arguing from the known to the obscure ? 
Why, this : " What was before, may be to-day. 
Since Samuel's ghost ajipeared to Saul, — of course 
My brother's sjiirit may appear to me." 
Go tell your teacher that ! What's his reply ? 
What l)rings a shade of doubt for the first time 
O'er his brow late so luminous with faith ? 
" Such things have been," says he, " and there's no doubfi 
Such things may be : but I advise mistrust 
Of eyes, ears, stomach, —more than all, of brain. 



244 MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM." 

Unless it ho of your great-grandmother, 

Wlienever they propose a ghost to you ! " 

The end is, there's a composition struck ; 

'Tis settled, we've some way of intercourse 

Just as in Saul's time ; only, different : 

How, when, and where, precisely, — find it outl 

I want to know, then, what's so natural 

As that a person born into this world 

And seized on by such teaching, should begin 

With firm expectancy and a frank look-out 

For his own allotment, his especial share 

I' the secret, — his particular ghost, in fine? 

I mean, a person born to look that way, 

Since natures differ : take the painter-sort, 

One man lives fifty years in ignorance 

"Whether grass be green or red, — " No kind of eye 

For color," say you ; while another picks 

And puts away even pebbles, when a child, 

Because of bluish spots and pinky veins — 

"Give him forthwith a paint-box ! " Just the same 

Was I born . . . " medium," you won't let me say, — 

Well, seer of the supernatural 

Everywhen, everyhow, and everywhere, — 

Will that do? 

I and all such boys of course 
Started with the same stock of Bible-truth ; 
Only, — what in the rest you style their sense, 
Instinct, blind reasoning but imperative. 
This, betimes, taught tliem the old world had one law 
And ours another : " New world, new laws," cried they : 
" None but old laws, seen everywhare at work," 
Cried I, and by their help explained my life 
The Jews' way, still a working way to me. 
Ghosts made the noises, fairies waved the lights, 
Or Santa Glaus slid down on New-Year's Eve 
And stuifed with cakes the stocking at my bed. 
Changed the worn shoes, rubbed clean the fingered slate 
O' the sum that came to grief the day before. 

This could not last long : soon enough I found 

Who had worked wonders thus, and to what end : 

But did I find all easy, like my mates? 

Henceforth no supernatural any more ? 

Not a whit : what projects the billiard-balls? 

" A cue," you answer : " Yes, a cue," said I ; 

" But what hand, off the cushion, moved the cue? 

What unseen agency, outsidt; the world. 

Prompted its puppets to do this aud that. 

Put cakes and shoes and slates into their mind, 

These motliers and aunts, nay even schoolmasters?" 

Thus high I sprang, and there have settled since. 

Just so I reason, in sober earnest still, 

About the greater godsends, what you call 

The serious gains and losses of my life. 

What do I know or care about your world 

Which either is or seems to be ? This snap 

O' my fingers, sir ! My care is for myself ; 

Myself am whole and sole reality 



MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM:' 24t 

Inside a raree-show and a market-mob 

Gathered about it : that's the use of tilings. 

'Tis easy saying tliey serve vast purposes, 

Advantage their grand selves : be it true or false, 

Each thing may have two uses. What's a star ? 

A world, or a world's sun : doesn't it serve 

As taper also, time-piece, weather-glass. 

And almanac ? Are stars not set for signs 

When we should shear our sheep, sow corn, prune trees? 

The Bible says so. 

Well, I add one use 
To all the acknowledged uses, and declare 
If I spy Charles's Wain at twelve to-night, 
It warns me, " Go, nor lose another day. 
And have your hair cut, Sludge ! " You laugh : and why? 
Were such a sign too hard for God to give ? 
No : but Sludge seems too little for such grace : 
Thank you, sir ! So you think, so does not Sludge 1 
When you and good men gape at Providence, 
Go into liistory and bid us mark 
Not merely powder-plots prevented, crowns 
Kept on kings' heads by miracle enough, 
But private mercies — oh, you've told me, sir, 
Of such interpositions ! How yourself 
Once, missing on a memorable day 
Your handkerchief — just setting out, you know, — 
You must return to fetch it, lost the train. 
And saved your precious self from what befell 
The thirty-three whom Providence forgot. 
You tell, and ask me what I think of this ? 
Well, sir, I think, then, since you needs must know, 
What matter had you and Boston City to boot 
Sailed skyward, like burnt onion-peelings? Much 
To you, no doubt : for me — undoubtedly 
The cutting of my hair concerns me more, 
Because, however sad the truth may seem. 
Sludge is of all-importance to himself. 
You set apart that day in every year 
For special thanksgiving, were a heathen else : 
Well, I who cannot boast the like escape. 
Suppose I said " 1 don't thank Providence 
For my part, owing it no gratitude ? " — 
" Nay, but you owe as much " — you'd tutor me, 
You, every man alive, for blessings gained 
In every hour o' the day, could you but know ! 
I saw my crowning mercy : all have such. 
Could they but see ! " Well, sir, why don't they see? 
" Because they won't look, — or perhaps they can't." 
Then, sir, suppose I can, and will, and do 
Look, microscopically as is right. 
Into each hour with its infinitude 
Of influences at work to profit Sludge ? 
For that's the case : I've sharpened up my sight 
To spy a providence in the fire's going out. 
The kettle's boiling, the dime's sticking fast 
Despite the hole i' the pocket Call such facts 
Fancies, too petty a work for Providence, 
And those same thanks which you exact from me. 



246 MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM." 

Prove too iirodigious payment : thanks for what, 

If nothing guards and guides us little men ? 

No, no, sir ! You must put away your pride, 

Resolve to let Sludge into iiartnership ! 

I live by signs and omens : look at the roof 

Where the pigeons settle — " If the farther bird, 

The white, takes wing first, I'll confess when thrashed ; 

Not, if the blue does " — so I said to myself 

Last week, lest you should take me by surprise : 

Off flapped the white, — and I'm confessing, sir I 

Perhaps 'tis Providence's whim and way 

"With only me, i' the world : how can you tell ? 

" Because unlikely ! " Was it likelier, now, 

That this our one out of all worlds beside, 

The what-d'yon-call-'em millions, should be just 

Precisely chosen to make Adam for. 

And the rest o' the tale ? Yet the tale's true, you knov ! 

Such undeserving clod was graced so once ; 

Why not graced likewise undeserving Sludge ? 

Are we merit-mongers, flaunt we filthy rags ? 

All you can bring against my privilege 

Is, that another way was taken with you, — 

Which I don't question. It's pure grace, my luck. 

I'm broken to the way of nods and winks. 

And need no formal summoning. You've a help ; 

Holloa his name or whistle, clap your hands, 

Stamp with your foot or pull the bell : all's one, 

He understands you want him, here he comes. 

Just so, I come at the knocking : you, sir, wait 

The tongue o' the bell, nor stir before you catch 

Reason's clear tingle, nature's clapper brisk. 

Or that traditional peal was wont to cheer 

Your mother's face turned heavenward : short of these 

There's no authentic intimation, eh ? 

Well, when you hear, you'll answer them, start up 

And stride into the presence, top of toe. 

And there find Sludge beforehand. Sludge that sprung 

At noise o' the knuckle on the partition-wall ! 

I think myself the more religious man. 

Religion's all or nothing ; it's no mere smile 

O' contentment, sigh of aspiration, sir — 

No quality o' the finelier-teui]icrpd clay 

Like its whiteness or its lightness ; rather, stuff 

O' the very stuff, life of life, and self of self. 

I tell you, men won't notice ; when tliey do, 

They'll understand. I notice nothing else, 

I'm eyes, ears, mouth of me, one gaze and gape, 

Nothing eludes me, every thing's a hint. 

Handle, and help. It's all absi\rd, and yet 

There's something in it all, I know : how much ? 

No answer ! What does that prove ? Man's still ma*'. 

Still meant for a poor blundering piece of work 

When all's done ; but, if somewhat's done, like this. 

Or not done, is the case the same ? Suppose 

I blunder in my guess at tbe true sense 

O' the knuckle-summons, nine times out of ten, — 

What if the tenth guess happen to be right ? 

If the tenth shovel-load of powdered quartz 

Yield me the nugget ? I gather, crush, sift all, 



MR. SLUDGE, '"THE MEDIUMS 247 

Pass o'er the failure, pounce on the success. 

To give you a notion, now — (let who wins, laugh 1) 

When first I see a man, wliat do I first? 

Why. count the letters which make up his name, 

Anil as their number chances, even or odd. 

Arrive at my conclusion, trim my course : 

Hiram H. Horsefall is your honored name, 

And haven't I found a patron, sir, in you ? 

" Sliall I clicat this stranger ? " I take apple-jiips, 

Stick one in either canthus of my eye, 

And if the left dro]\s first — (your left, sir, stuck) 

I'm warned, I let the trick alone this time. 

You, sir, who smile, superior to sucli trash, 

You judge of character by other rules : 

Don't yoixr rules sometimes fail you ? Fray, what rule 

Have you judged Sludge by hitherto ? 

Oh, be sure, 
You, everybody blunders, just as I, 
In simpler things than these by far ! For see : 
I knew two farmers, — one, a wiseacre 
Who studied seasons, rummaged almanacs, 
Quoted the devv-iioint, registered the frost. 
And then declared, for outcome of his pains, 
Next summer must be dampish : 'twas a drought. 
His neighbor prophesied such di'ought would fall, 
Saved hay and corn, made cent per cent thereby, 
And proved a sage indeed : how came his lore ? 
Be(!ause one brindled heifer, late in March, 
Stiffened her tail of evenings, and somehow 
He got into his head that drought was meant ! 
I don't exjiect all men can do as much : 
Such kissing goes by favor. You must take 
A certain turn of mind for this, — a twist 
I' the fiesh, as well. Be lazily alive, 
Open-moutlied, like my friend the anteater. 
Letting all nature's loosely guarded motes 
Settle and, slick, be swallowed ! Think yourself 
The one i' the world, the one for whom the world 
Was made, expect it tickling at your mouth ! 
Then will the swarm of busy buzzing Hies, 
Clouds of coincidence, break egg-shell, thrive, 
Breed, nuiltiply, and bring you food enough. 
I can't pretend to mind your smiling, sir I 
Oh, what you mean is this ! Such intimate way, 
Close converse, frank excliaiig(i of offices. 
Strict sympathy of the immeasurably great 
With the infinitely small, betokened here 
By a course of signs and omens, raps and sparks, — 
How does it suit the dread traditional text 

O' the " Great and Terrible Name ? " Shall the Heaven of hearens 
Stoop to such child's play ? 

Please, sir, go with me 
A moment, and I'll try to answer you. 
The " Mnf/nnm ct terribUe " (is that right?) 
Well, folk began with this in the early day ; 
And all the acts they recognized in proof 
Were thunders, lightnings, earthquakes, whirlwinds, dealt 



248 MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM:' 

Indisputably on men whose death they caused. 
There, and there only, folk saw Providence 
At work, — and seeing it, 'twas right enough 
All heads should tremble, hands wring hands amain, 
And knees knock hard together at the breath 
O' the Name's first letter ; why, the Jews, I'm told, 
"Won't write it down, no, to this very hour, 
Nor speak aloud : you know best il't be so. 
Each ague-tit of fear at end, they crept 
(Because somehow people once born must live) 
Out of the sound, sight, swing, and sway o' the Name, 
Into a corner, the dark rest of th(^ world, 
And safe space where as yet no fear had reached ; 
'Twas there they looked about them, breathed again, 
And felt indeed at home, as we might say. 
The current o' common things, the daily life, 
This had their due contempt ; no Name pur.sued 
Man from the mountain-top where fires abide. 
To liis particular mouse-hole at its foot 
Where he ate, drank, digested, lived in short : 
Such was man's vulgar business, far too small 
To be worth thunder ; " small," folk k(;i>t on, " small," 
"With much comi)lacency in those great days ! 
A mote of sand, you know, a blade of grass — 
"What was so despicable as mere grass, 
Exce])t perhaps the life o' the worm or fly 
Which fe<l there ? These were " small " and men were great. 
Well, sir, the old way's altered somewhat since, 
. And the world wears another aspect now : 
Somebody turns our spyglass round, or else 
Puts a new lens in it : grass, worm, fly grow big : 
We find great things are made of little things, 
And little things go lessening till at last 
Comes God behind them. Talk of mountains now? 
We talk of mould that heaits the mountain, mites 
That throng the mould, and God tliat makes the mites. 
The Name comes close behind a stomach-cyst, 
The simplest of creations, just a sac 
That's mouth, heart, legs, and belly at once, yet lives 
And feels, and could do neitlnn-, we conclude, 
If simplified still further one degree : 
The small becomes the dreadful and immense ! 
Lightning, forsooth ? No word more upon that ? 
A tin-foil l)ottle, a strip of greasy silk. 
With a bit of wire and knob of i)rass, and there's 
Your dollar's worth of lightning ! But the cyst — 
The life of the least of the little things ? 

No, no ! 

Preachers and teachers try another tack. 

Come near the truth this time : they [)ut aside 

Thunder and lightning : " That's mistake," they cry, 

" Thunderbolts fall for neither fright nor sport, 

But do appreciable good, like tides. 

Changes o' the wind, and other natural facts — 

' Good ' meaning good to man, his body or soul. 

Mediate, immediate, all things minister 

To man, — that's settled : be our future text 

' We are His children 1 ' " So, they now harangue 



MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM.'' 249 

About the iuteution, the contrivance, all 
That keeps up an incessant play of love, — 
See the Bridgewater book. 

Amen to it ! 
"Well, sir, I put this question : I'm a child ? 
I lose no time, but take you at your word : 
How shall I act a child's part properly ? 
Your sainted mother, sir, — used you to live 
With such a thought as this a-worrying you ? • 

" She has it in her power to throttle me. 
Or stab or poison : she may turn me out, 
Or lock me in, — nor stop at this to-day, 
But cut me off to-morrow from the estate 
I look iov " — (long may you enjoy it, sir !) 
" In brief, she may unchild the child I am." 
You never had such crotchets ? Nor have I ! 
Who, frank confessing childship from the first, 
Cannot both fear and take my ease at once. 
So, don't fear, —know what might be, well enough, 
But know too, childlike, tliat it will not be. 
At least in my case, mine, the son and heir 
O' the kingdom, as yourself jiroclaim my style. 
But do you fancy I stop short at this ? 
Wonder if suit and service, son and heir 
Needs must expect, I dare pretend to find? 
If, looking for signs proper to such an one, 
I straight jierceive them irresistible ? 
Concede that homage is a son's plain right, 
And, never mind the nods and raps and winks, 
'Tis the pure obvious oupernatural 
Steps forward, does ita duty : why, of course ! 
I have presentimer ti) ; ray dreams come true : 
I fancy a friend sta m^js whistling all in white 
Blithe as a bob'link rci he's dead I learn. 
I take dislike to a d^jT my favorite long. 
And sell him : he goes mad next week, and snaps. 
I guess that stranger will turn up to-day 
I have not seen these three years : there's his knock 
I wager " sixty peachjs on that tree ! " — 
That I pick up a dollar in my walk. 
That your wife's brother's cousin's name was George -^ 
And win on all points. Oh ! you wince at this ? 
You'd fain distinguish between gift and gift, 
Washington's oracle and Sludge's itch 
O' the elbow when at whist he ought to trump? 
With Sludge it's too absurd ? Fine, dnnv the line 
Someichere ; but, sir, your someiohere is not mine ! 
Bless us, I'm turning poet ! It's time to end. 
How you have drawn me out, sir ! All I ask 
Is — am I heir or not heir ? If I'm he. 
Then, sir, remember, that same personage 
(To judge by what we read i' the newspaper) 
Requires, beside one nobleman in gold 
To carry up and down his coronet. 
Another servant, probably a duke. 
To hold egg-nogg in readiness : vvliy want 
Attendance, sir, when helps in his father's hou»fc 
Abound, I'd like to know ? 



250 MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM:' 

Enougli of talk 1 
My fault is that I tell too plain a ti'iith. 
Wliy, which of those who say they disl)elieve, 
Your clever peoi)le, l)ut has dreamed his dream. 
Caught his coincidence, stumbled on his fact 
He can't explain (he'll tell you smilingly), 
"Which he's too much of a philosopher 
To count as supernatural, indeed, 
So calls a puzzle and prol)lem, proud of it : 
Bidding you still be on your guard, you know. 
Because one fact don't make a system stand, 
Nor prove this an occasional escape 
Of spirit beneath the matter : that's the way ! 
Just so wild Indians picked up, piece by piece, 
The fact in California, the tine gold 
That underlay the gravel — hoarded these, 
But never made a system stand, nor dug ! 
So wise men hold out in each hollowed palm 
A handful of experience, sparkling fact 
They can't explain ; and since their rest of life 
Is ail explainable, what proof in this? 
Whereas I take the fact, the grain of gold, 
And fling away the dirty rest of life, 
And add this grain to the grain each fool has found 
O' the million other such i)hilosophers, — 
Till I see gold, all gold and only gold. 
Truth questionless thougli unexplainable, 
And the miraculous proved the commonplace I 
The other fools believed in mud, no doubt — 
Failed to know gold they saw : was that so strange ? 
Are all men born to play Bach's fiddle-fugues, 
" Time " with the foil in carte, jump their own height, 
Cut the mutton with the broadsword, skate a five, 
Make the red hazard with the cue, clip nails 
While swimming, in live minutes row a mile, 
Pull themselves thr(;e feet uj) with the left arm, 
Do sums of tifty figures in their head. 
And so on, by the scores of instances? 
The Sludge with luck, who sees the spiritual facts. 
His fellows strive and fail to see, may rank 
With these, and share the advantage. 

Ay, hut share 
Tlie drawback ! Think it over by yourself : 
I have not heart, sir, and the fire's gone gray. 
Defeit somewhere comiiensatos for success. 
Every one knows that. Oli, we're ecpials, sir 1 
The big-legged fellow has a little arm 
And a less brain, though big legs win the race : 
Do you sujipose I 'scape the common lot? 
Say, I was born with nesh so sensitive. 
Soul so alert, that, practice helping both, 
I guess what's going on outside the \e\\, 
Just as a prisoned crane feels pairing-time 
In the islands where his kiiul are, so must fall 
To capering by himself some shiny night. 
As if your back-yard were a plot of spice — 
Thus am I 'ware o' tlie spirit-world : while you, 
Blind as a beetle that way, — for amends, 



MR. SLUDGE, " THE MEDIUM:' 251 

Wliy, you can double fist and floor me, sir ! 

Ride that hot liardmouthed liorrid horse of yours, 

Laugh while it lightens, play with the great dog, 

Speak your mind though it vex some friend to hear, 

Never brag, never bluster, never blush, — 

In short, you've pluck, when I'm a coward — there ! 

I know it, I can't help it, — folly or no, 

I'm paralyzed, my hand's no more a hand, 

Nor nay head, a head, in danger : you can smile, 

And change the pipe in your cheek. Your gift's not mine. 

Would you swap for mine ? No ! but you'd add my gift 

To yours : I dare say ! I too sigh at times. 

Wish I were stouter, could tell truth nor flinch, 

Kept cool when threatened, did not mind so much 

Being dressed gayly, making strangers stare, 

Eating nice tilings ; when I'd amuse my?elf, 

I shut my eyes and fancy in my brain, 

I'm — now the President, now, Jenny Lind, 

Now, Emerson, now, the Benicia Boy — 

With all the civilized world a-wondering 

And worshipping. I know it's folly and worse ; 

I feel such tricks sap, honeyiomb the soul : 

But I can't cure myself, — despond, despair, 

And then, hey, presto, there's a turn o' the wheel. 

Under comes ujipermost, fate makes full amends ; 

Sludge knows and sees and hears a hundred things 

You all are blind to, — I've my taste of truth, 

Likewise my touch of falsehood, — vice no doubt, 

But you've your vices also : I'm content. 

What, sir ? You won't shake hands ? " Because I cheat I " 

" You've found nie out in cheating ! " That's enough 

To make an apostle swear ! Why, when I cheat, 

Mean to cheat, do cheat, and am cavf/ht in the act, 

Are yoii, or rather, am I sure o' the fact ? 

(There's verse again, but I'm inspired somehow.) 

Well then I'm not sure ! I may be, perhaps, 

Frne as a babe from cheating : how it began. 

My gift, — no matter ; what 'tis got to be 

In the end now, that's the question ; answer that I 

Had I seen, perhaps, what hand was holding mine, 

Leading me whither, I had died of fright. 

So, I was made believe I led myself. 

If I should lay a six-inch plank from roof 

To roof, you would not cross the street, one step, 

Even at your mother's summons : Init, being shrewd, 

If I paste paiMT on each side the plank. 

And swear 'tis solid pavement, why, you'll cross 

Humming a tune the while, in ignorance 

Beacon Street stretches a hundred feet below : 

I walked thus, took the paper-cheat for stone. 

Some impulse made me set a thing o' the move 

Which, started once, ran really by itself ; 

Beer flows thus, suck the siphon ; toss the kite, 

It takes the wind and floats of its own force. 

Don't let truth's lump rot stagnant for the lack 

Of a timely helpful lie to leaven it ! 

Put a chalk-egg beneath the clucking hen. 

She'll lay a real one, laudably deceived, 



252 MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM:' 

Daily for weeks to come. I've told my lie, 
And seen truth follow, marvels none of mine ; 
All was not cheating, sir, I'm positive ! 
I don't know if I move your hand sometimes 
"Wken the spontaneous writing spreads so far, 
If my knee lifts the table all that height. 
Why the inkstand don't fall olf the desk a-tilt, 
"Why the accordion plays a prettier waltz 
Than I can pick out on the piano-forte, 
"Whj^ I speak so much more than I intend, 
Describe so many things I never saw. 
I tell you, sir, in one sense, I believe 
Nothing at all, — that evei-ybody can, 
"Will, and does cheat : but in another sense 
I'm ready to believe my very self — 
That every cheat's inspired, and every lie 
Quick with a germ of truth. 

You ask perhaps 
Why I should condescend to trick at all 
If I know a way without it? This is why ! 
There's a strange, secret, sweet self-sacrifice 
In any desecration of one's soiil 
To a worthy end, — isn't it Herodotus 
(I wish I could read Latin !) who describes 
The single gift o' the land's virginity. 
Demanded in those old Egyptian rites, 
(I've but a hazy notion — help me, sir !) 
For one purpose in the world, one day in a life, 
One hour in a daj' — thereafter, purity. 
And a veil thrown o'er the past for evermore ! 
Well now, they understood a many things 
Down by Nile city, or wherever it was ! 
I've always vowed, after the minute's lie. 
And the end's gain, —truth should be mine henceforth. 
This goes to the root o' the matter, sir, — this plain 
Plump fact : accept it, and unlock with it 
The wards of many a jjuzzle ! 

Or, finally. 
Why should I set so fine a gloss on things ? 
What need I care ? I cheat in self-defence. 
And there's my answer to a world of cheats ! 
Cheat? To be sure, sir ! What's the world worth else ? 
Who takes it as he finds, and thanks his stars ? 
Don't it want trimming, turning, furbishing up 
And polishing over? Your so-styled great men. 
Do they accejit one truth as truth is found. 
Or try their skill at tinkering ? What's your world ? 
Here are you born, who are, I'll say at once, 
Of the luckiest whether as to head and heart, 
Body and soul, or all that helps the same. 
Well, now, look l>ack : what faculty of yours 
Came to its full, had ample justice done 
By growing when rain fell, biding its time, 
Solidifying growth when earth was dead, ■ 
Spiring uji, broadening wide, in seasons diie? 
Never ! You shot up and frost nipped j'ou off. 
Settled to sleep when sunshine bade you sprout ; 



MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM." 2L2, 



One faculty thwarted its fellow : at the end, 

All you boast is, "I had jn-oved a toppiug tree 

In other climes " — yet this was the right clime 

Had you foreknown the seasons. Young, you've force 

Wasted like well-streams : old, — oh, then indeed, 

Behold a labyrinth of hydraulic pipes 

Through which you'd play off wondrous waterwork ; 

Only, no water left to feed their play. 

Young, — you've a hope, an aim, a love ; it's tossed 

And crossed and lost : you struggle on, some spark 

Shut in your heart against the puffs around. 

Through cold and pain ; these in due time subside, 

Now tlien for age's triumph, the hoarded light 

You mean to loose on the altered face of things, — 

Up with it on the tripod ! It's extinct. 

Spend your life's remnant asking — which was best, 

Light smothered up that never peeped forth once, 

Or the cold cresset with full leave to shine ? 

"Well, accept this too, — seek the fruit of it 

Not in enjoyment, proved a dream on earth, 

But knowledge, useful for a second chance, 

Another life, — you've lost this world, you've gained 

Its knowledge for the next. — What knowledge, sir, 

Excejit that you know nothing ? Nay, you doubt 

Whether 'twere l)etter have been made man or brute. 

If aught is true, if good and evil clash. 

No foul, no fair, no inside, no outside, 

There's your world ! 

Give it me ! I slap it brisk 
With harlequin's pastelioard sceptre : what's it now? 
Changed like a rock-tlat, rough with rusty weed. 
At first wash-over o' the returning wave ! 
All the dry, dead, imjiracticable stuff 
Starts into life and light again ; this world 
Pervade<l by the influx from the next. 
I cheat, and what's the happy consequence ? 
You find full justice straightway dealt you out. 
Each want supplied, each ignorance set at ease. 
Each folly fooled. No life-long labor now 
As the price of worse than nothing ! No mere film 
Holding you chained in iron, as it seems, 
Against the outstretch of your very arms 
And legs i' the sunshine moralists forbid ! 
What would you have ? Just speak and, there, you see ! 
You're supplemented, made a whole at last : 
Bacon advises, Shakspeare writes you songs, 
And Mai"y Queen of Scots embraces you. 
Thus it goes on, not quite like life perhaps. 
But so near, that the very difference piques. 
Shows that e'en better than this best will be — 
This passing entertainment in a hut 

Whose bare walls take your taste — since, one stage more, 
And you arrive at the palace : all half real, 
And you, to suit it, less than real beside, 
In a dream, lethargic kind of death in life, 
That helps the interchange of natures, flesh 
Transfused by souls, and such souls ! Oh, 'tis choice I 
And if at whiles the bubble, blown too thin. 



254 MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM.'' 

Seem nigh on bursting, — if you nearJv see 

The real world through the false, — what do you see ? 

Is the old so ruined ? You find you're in a tlock 

O' the youthful, earnest, passionate — genius, beauty, 

Rank and wealth also, if you care for these. 

And all depose their natural rights, hail you 

(That's me, sir) as their mate and yoke-fellow. 

Participafe in Shulgehood — nay, grow mine, 

I veritably possess them — banish doubt, 

And reticence and modesty alike ! 

Why, here's the Golden Age, old Paradise, 

Or new Eutopia ! Here is life indeed, 

And the world well won now, yours for the first time I 

And all this might be, may be, and with good help 

Of a little lying shall be : so. Sludge lies ! 

Why, he's at worst your poet who sings how Greeks 

That never were, in Tray which never was. 

Did this or the other impossible great thing ! 

He's Lowell — it's a world, you smile and say, 

Of his own invention — wondrous Longfellow, 

Surjirising Hawthorne ! Sludge does more than they, 

And acts the books they write : the more his praise I 

But why do I mount to poets ? Take plain prose — 

Dealers in common sense, set these at work, 

What can thej^ do without their helpful lies ? 

Each states the law and fact and face o' the thing 

Just as he'd have them, finds what he thinks fit, 

Is blind to what missuits hiTii, just records 

What makes his case out, quite ignores the rest. 

It's a History of the Worhl, the Lizard Age, 

The Early Indians, the Old Country War, 

Jerome Napoleon, whatsoever j'ou please, 

AH as the author wants it. Such a scribe 

You paj' and praise for putting life in stones. 

Fire into fog, making the past your world. 

There's plenty of " Plow did you contrive to grasp 

The thread which led you through this labyrinth ? 

How build such solid fabric out of air? 

How on so slight foundation found this tale, 

Biography, narrative?" or, in other words, 

" How many lies did it require o make 

The portly truth you here present us with ? " — 

" Oh ! " quoth the penman, purring at your praise, 

" 'Tis fancj' all ; no particle of fact : 

I was poor and threadbare when I wrote that book 

' Bliss in the Golden City.' I, at Thebes ? 

We writers paint out of our heads, you see ! " 

— " Ah, the more wonderful the gift in you, 

The more creativeness and godlike craft ! " 

But I, do I present you with my jiiece. 

It's " What, Sludge? When my sainted mother spoke 

The verses Lady Jane Grey last composed 

About the rosy bower in the seventh lieaven 

Where she and Queen Elizabeth keep house, — 

You made the raps? 'Twas your invention that? 

Cur, slave, and devil ! " — eight fingers and two thumbs 

Stuck in my throat ? 



MR. SLUDGE, ''THE MEDIUM." 25') 

Well, if the marks seem gone, 
'Tis because stiffish cock-tail, taken in time, 
Is better for a bruise than arnica. 
There, sir ! I bear no malice : 'tisn't in me. 
I know I acted wrongly : still, I've tried 
What I could say in my excuse, — to show 
The Devil's not all devil ... I don't pretend, 
An angel, much less such a gentleman 
As you, sir ! And I've lost you, lost myself, 
Lost all, 1-1-1- ... 

No — are you in earnest, sir ? 
Oh, yours, sir, is an angel's part ! I know 
What prejudice prompts, and what's the common course 
Men take to soothe their ruffled self-conceit : 
Only you rise superior to it all ! 
No, sir, it don't hurt much ; it's speaking long 
That makes me choke a little : the marks will go ! 
What ? Twenty V-nutes more, and outfit too, 
And not a word to Greeley ? One — one kiss 
O' the hand that saves me ! You'll not let me speak 
I well know, and I've lost the right, too true ! 
But I must saj', sir, if She hears (she does) 
Your sainted . . . Well, sir, — be it so ! 'That's, I think, 
My bed-room candle. Good-night ! BI-1-less you, sir ! 



K-r-r, you brute-beast and blackguard ! Cowardly scamp ! 

I only wish I dared burn down the bouse 

And spoil your sniggering ! Oh ! what, you're the man? 

You're satisfied at last ? You've found out Sludge ? 

We'll see that ])resently : my turn, sir, next ! 

I too can tell my story : brute, — do you hear ? — 

You throttled your sainted mother, that old hag, 

In just such a fit of passion : no, it was . . . 

To get this house of hers, and many a note 

Like these . . . I'll pocket them, however . . . five, 

Ten, fifteen . . . ay, you gave her throat the twist, 

Or else you poisonecl her ! Confound the cuss ! 

Where was my head ? I ought to have prophesied 

He'll die in a year and join her : that's the way. 

I don't know where my head is : what had I done? 

How did it all go ? I said he poisoned her. 

And hoped he'd have grace given him to repent. 

Whereon he picked this quarrel, bullied me. 

And called me cheat : I thrashed him, — who could help? 

He howled for mercy, prayed me on his knees 

To cut and run and save him from disgrace : 

I do so, and once off, he slanders me. 

An end of him. Begin elsewhere anew ! 

Boston's a hole, the herring-pond is wide, 

V-notes are something, liberty still more. 

Beside, is he the only fool in the world ? 



256 



THE BOY AND THE ANGEL. 



THE BOY AND THE ANGEL. 

Morning, evening, noon, and nigbt, 
" Praise God ! " sang Tlieocrite. 

Then to liis poor trade he turned, 
Whereby the daily meal was earned. 

Hard he labored, long and well : 
O'er his work the boy's curls fell. 

But ever, at each period. 

He stopped and sang, " Praise God ! " 

Then back again his curls he threw. 
And cheerful turned to work anew. 

Said Blaise, the listening monk, 

" Well done ; 
I doubt not thou art heard, my son, 

" As well as if thy voice to-day 
Were praising God, the Pope's great 
way. 

" This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome 
Praises God from Peter's dome." 

Said Theocrite, " Would God that I 
Might praise him, that great way, and 
die ! " 

Night passed, day shone ; 
And Theocrite was gone. 

With God a day endures alway : 
A thousand years are but a day. 

God said in heaven, "Nor day nor 

night 
Now brings the voice of my delight. ' 

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, 
Spread his wings and sank to earth ; 

Entered, in flesh, the empty cell, 
Lived there, and played the craftsman 
well ; 

And morning, evening, noon, and 

night. 
Praised God in place of Theocrite. 

And from a boy, to youth he grew ; 
The man put off the stripling's hue ; 

The man matured and fell away 
Into the season of decay ; 



And ever o'er the trade he bent. 
And ever lived on earth content. 

(He did God's will ; to him, all one 
If on the earth or in the sun.) 

God said, " A praise is in mine ear ; 
There is no doubt in it, no fear : 

" So sing old worlds, and so 

New worlds that from my footstool 

go- 

" Clearer loves sound other ways : 
I miss my little human praise." 

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off 

fell 
The flesh disguise, remained the cell. 

'Twas Easter Day : he flew to Rome, 
And paused above Saint Peter's dome. 

In the tiring-room close by 
The great outer gallery. 

With his holy vestments dight, 
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite : 



And all his past career 
Came back upon him clear. 

Since when, a boy, he plied his trade, 
Till on his life the sickness weighed ; 

And in his cell, when death drew near, 
An angel in a dream brought cheer : 

And rising from the sickness drear 
He grew a priest, and now stood here. 

To the East with praise he turned. 
And on his sight the angel burned. 

" I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell 
And set thee here : I did not well. 

" Vainly I left my angel-sphere. 
Vain was thy dream of many a year. 

" Thy voice's praise seemed weak : it 

dropiied — 
Creation's chorus stopped 1 

" Go back and praise again 
The early way, while I remain. 

" With that weak voice of our disdain 
Take up creation's pausing strain. 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



257 



" Back to the cell and poor emploj- : 
Resume the craftsman and the boy ! 

Theocrite grew old at home : 

A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome. 

One vanished as the other died : 
They sought God side by side. 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 

[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antio- 
chene : 

It is a parchment, of my rolls the 
fifth, 

Hath three skins glued together, is 
all Greek, 

And goeth from Epsilon down to Mii : 

Lies second in the surnamed Chosen 
Chest, 

Stained and conserved with juice of 
terebinth. 

Covered with cloth of hair, and let- 
tered Xi, 

From Xanthus, my wife's uncle, now 
at peace : 

Ahi and Epsilon stand for my own 
name, 

I may not write it, but I make a cross 

To show I wait His coming, with the 
rest. 

And leave off here : beginneth Pam- 
phylax.] 

I said, "If one should wet his lips 

with wine. 
And slij) the broadest plantain-leaf 

we find, 
Or else the lappet of a linen rolie. 
Into the water-vessel, lay it right. 
And cool his forehead just above the 

eyes. 
The while a brother, kneeling either 

side, 
Should chafe each hand and try to 

make it warm, — 
He is not so far gone but he might 

speak." 

This did not happen in the outer cave. 
Nor in the secret chamber of the rock, 
Where, sixty days since the decree 

was out. 
We had him, bedded on a camel-skin, 



And waited for his dying all the while; 
But in the midmost grotto : since 

noon's light 
Reached there a little, and we would 

not lose 
The last of what might happen on 

his face. 

I at the head, and Xanthus at the 

feet. 
With Valens and the Boy, had lifted 

him. 
And brought him from the chamber 

in the depths, 
And laid him in the light where we 

might see : 
For certain smiles began about his 

mouth. 
And his lids moved, presageful of the 

end. 

Beyond, and half way wp the mouth 

o' the cave. 
The Bactrian convert, having his 

desire. 
Kept watch, and made pretence to 

graze a goat 
That gave us milk, on rags of various 

herb. 
Plantain and quitch, the rocks' shade 

keeps alive : 
So that if any thief or soldier passed 
(Because the persecution was aware), 
Yielding the goat up promptly with 

his life. 
Such man might pass on, joyful at a 

prize. 
Nor care to pry into the cool o' the 

cave. 
Outside was all noon and the burning 

blue. 

"Here is wine," answered Xanthus, 

— dropped a drop ; 

I stooped and placed the lap of cloth 

aright, 
Then chafed his right hand, and the 

Boj' his left : 
But Valens had bethought him, and 

produced 
And broke a ])all of nard, and made 

perfume. 
Only, he did — not so much wake, as 

— turn 

And smile a little, as a sleeper does 
If anj' dear one call him, touch his 

face — 
And smiles and loves, but will not be 

disturbed. 



258 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



Then Xanthus said a prayer, but still 

lie slept : 
It is the Xanthus that escaped to 

Rome, 
Was burned, and could not write the 

chronicle. 

Then the Boy sprang up from his 
knees, and ran, 

Stung by the splendor of a sudden 
thought. 

And fetched the seventh plate of 
graven lead 

Out of the secret chamber, found a 
place, 

Pressing with finger on the deeper 
dints. 

And spoke, as 'twere his mouth pro- 
claiming first 

" I am the Resurrection and the Life." 

Whereat he opened his eyes wide at 

once. 
And sat up of himself, and looked at 

us ; 
And thenceforth nobody pronounced 

a word : 
Only, outside, the Bactrian cried his 

cry 
Like the lone desert-bird that wears 

the ruff. 
As signal we were safe, from time to 

timf 

First he said, " If a friend declared 

to me, 
This my son Valens, this my other 

son. 
Were James and Peter, — nay, de- 
clared as well 
This lad was very John, — I could 

believe ! 
— Could, for a moment, doubtlessly 

believe : 
So is myself withdrawn into my 

depths. 
The soul retreated from the perished 

brain 
Whence it was wont to feel and use 

the world 
Through these dull members, done 

with long ago. 
Yet I myself remain ; I feel myself : 
And there is nothing lost. Let be, 

a while ! " 

[This is the doctrine he was wont to 
teach, 



How divers persons witness in each 

man. 
Three souls which make up one soul : 

first, to wit, 
A soul of each and all the bodily 

parts. 
Seated therein, which works, and is 

what Does, 
And has the use of earth, and ends 

the man 
Downward : but, tending upward for 

advice. 
Grows into, and again is grown into 
By the next soul, which, seated in 

the brain, 
Useth the first with its collected use. 
And feeleth, thinketh, willeth,— is 

what Knows : 
Which, duly tending upward in its 

turn , 
Grows into, and again is grown into 
By the last soul, that uses both the 

first. 
Subsisting whether they assist or no, 
And, constituting man's self, is what 

Is — 
And leans upon the former, makes 

it play. 
As that played off the first : and, 

tending up, 
Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends 

the man 
Upward in that dread point of inter- 
course. 
Nor needs a place, for it returns to 

Him. 
What Does, what Knows, what Is ; 

three souls, one man. 
I give the glossa of Theotypas.] 

And then, " A stick, once fire from 

end to end ; 
Now, ashes save the tip that holds a 

spark ! 
Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, 

spreads itself 
A little where the fire was : thus I 

urge 
The soul that served me, till it task 

once more 
What ashes of my brain have kept 

their shape. 
And these make effort on the last o' 

the flesh. 
Trying to taste again the truth of 

things " — 
(He smiled) — " their very superficial 

truth ; 
As that ye are my sons, that it is long 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



259 



Siiue Jaiues and Peter had release 

by death, 
And I am only he, yonrbrotlier John, 
\s'\m saw and heard, and could re- 

nienihei" all. 
Remember all ! It is not much to say. 
What if the truth broke on me from 

above 
As once and ofttimes ? Such might 

haji again : 
Doubtlessly He might stand in pres- 
ence here, 
With head wool-white, eyes, flame, 

and feet like brass, 
The sword and the seven stars, as I 

have seen — 
I who now shudder only and surmise 
' How did your brother bear that sight 

and live ? ' 

" If I live yet, it is for good, more love 
Through me to men : be naught but 

ashes here 
That keeji a while my semblance, who 

was John, — 
Still, when they scatter, there is left 

on earth 
No one alive who knew {consider this!) 
— Saw witli his eyes and handled 

with his hands 
That which was from the first, the 

Word of Life. 
How will it be when none more saith 

' I saw ' ? 

" Such ever was love's way : to rise, it 
stoops. 

Since I, whom Christ's mouth taught, 
was bidden teach, 

I went, for many years, about the 
world. 

Saying, 'It was so; so I heard and 
saw,' 

Speaking as the case asked: and men 
believed. 

Afterward came the message to my- 
self 

In Patmos isle ; I was not bidden 
teach, 

But simply listen, take a book and 
write, 

Nor set down other than the given 
word, 

With nothing left to my arbitrament 

To choose or change : I wrote, and 
men believed. 

Then, for my time grew brief, no mes- 
sage more, 

No call to write again, I found a way, 



And, reasoning from my knowledge, 

merely taught 
Men should, for love's sake, in love's 

strength, believe ; 
Or I would pen a letter to a friend 
And urge the same as friend, nor less 

nor more : 
Friends said I reasoned rightly, and 

believed. 
But at the last, why, I seemed left 

alive 
Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos 

strand, 
To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I 

fared 
When there was mid-sea, and the 

mighty things ; 
Left to repeat, ' I saw, I heard, I 

knew,' 
And go all over the old ground again, 
With Antichrist already in the world. 
And many Antichrists, who answered 

prom pt 
' Am I not Jaspar as thyself art John ? 
Nay, young, whereas through age thou 

mayest forget : 
Wherefore, explain, or how shall we 

believe ? ' 
I never thought to call down fire on 

such. 
Or, as in wonderful and early days, 
Pick up the scorpion, tread the serpent 

dumb ; 
But patient stated much of the Lord's 

life 
Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it 

work : 
Since much that at the first, in deed 

and word, 
Lay simply and sufficiently exposed, 
Had grown (or else my soul was grown 

to match. 
Fed through such years, familiar with 

such light. 
Guarded and guided still to see and 

speak) 
Of new significance and fresh result ; 
What first were guessed as jaoints, I 

now knew stars, 
And named them in the Gospel I have 

writ. 
For men said , ' It is getting long 

ago : ' 
' Where is the promise of His coming ? ' 

— asked 
These young ones in their strength, as 

loth to wait. 
Of me who, wlien their sires were 

born, was old. 



260 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



I, for I loved them, answered, joy- 
fully. 
Since I was there, and helpful in my 

age ; 
And, in the main, I think such men 

believed. 
Finall}% thus endeavoring, I fell sick, 
Ye brought me here, and I supposed 

the end, 
And went to sleep with one thought 

that, at least. 
Though the whole earth should lie in 

wickedness, 
"We had the truth, might leave the 

rest to God. 
Yet now I wake in such decrepitude 
As I had slidden down and fallen 

afar. 
Past even the presence of my former 

self. 
Grasping the while for stay at facts 

which snap. 
Till I am found away from my own 

world, 
Feeling for foot-hold through a blank 

profound, 
Along with unborn people in strange 

lands. 
Who say — I hear said or .conceive 

they say — 
' "Was John at all, and did he say he 

saw ? 
Assure us, ere we ask what he might 

see ! ' 

" And how shall I assure them ? Can 

they share 
— They, who have flesh, a veil of 

youth and strengtli 
About each spirit, that needs must 

bide its time. 
Living and learning still iis years 

assist 
Which wear the thickness thin, and 

let man see — 
With me wlio hardly am withheld at 

all. 
But shudderingly, scarce a shred be- 
tween. 
Lie bare to the universal prick of 

light ? 
Is it for nothing we grow old and 

weak. 
We whom God loves ? When pain 

ends, gain ends too. 
To me, that story — ay, that Life and 

Death 
Of which I wrote ' it was ' — to me, it 

is; 



— Is, here and now : I appreliend 

naught else. 
Is not God now i' the world his power 

first made ? 
Is not his love at issue still with sin, 
Visibly when a wrong is done on 

earth ? 
Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else 

around ? 
Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprisf 
To the right hand of the throne — what 

is it beside. 
When such truth, breaking bounds, 

o'ertloods my soul. 
And, as I saw the sin and death, even 

so 
See I the need yet transiency of both, 
The good and glory consummated 

thence ? 
I saw the Power ; I see the Love, once 

weak. 
Resume the Power : and in this word 

' I see,' 
Lo, there is recognized the Siiirit of 

both 
That moving o'er the spirit of man, 

unblinds 
His eye and bids him look. These 

are, I see ; 
But ye, the children, his beloved ones 

too, 
Ye need, — as I should use an optic 

glass 
I wondered at erewhile, somewhere i' 

the world. 
It had been given a crafty smith to 

make ; 
A tube, he turned on objects brought 

too close. 
Lying confusedly insubordinate 
For the unassisted eye to master 

once : 
Look through his tube, at distance 

now they lay. 
Become succinct, distinct, so small, 

so clear ! 
Just thus, ye needs must apprehend 

I what truth 
I see, reduced to plain historic fact, 
Diminished into clearness, proved a 

l^oint 
And far away : ye would withdraw 

your sense 
From out eternity, strain it upon 

time, 
Then stand before that fact, that Life 

and Death, 
Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dis« 

pread, 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



2r.i 



As though a star should open out, all 

sides, 
Grow the world ou you, as it is my 

world. 

" For life, with all it yields of joy and 

woe. 
And hope and fear, — believe the aged 

friend, — 
Is just our chance o' the prize of 

learning love, 
How love might be, hath been in- 
deed, and is ; 
And that we hold thenceforth to the 

uttermost 
Such prize despite the envy of the 

world. 
And, having gained truth, keep truth : 

that is all. 
But see the double way wherein we 

are led. 
How the soul learns diversely from 

the Hesh ! 
"With flesh, that hath so little time to 

stay, 
And yields mere basement for the 

soul's emjirize, 
Expect prompt teaching. Helpful 

was the light. 
And warmth was cherishing and food 

was choice 
To every man's flesh, thousand years 

ago. 
As now to yours and mine ; the body 

sprang 
At once to the height, and staid : 

but the soul, — no ! 
Since sages who, this noontide, medi- 
tate 
In Rome or Athens, may descry some 

point • 

Of the eternal power, hid yestereve : 
And, as thereby the power's whole 

mass extends, 
So much extends the ether floating 

o'er 
The love that tops the might, the 

Christ in God. 
Then, as new lessons shall be learned 

in these 
Till earth's work stop and useless 

time run oiit. 
So duly, daily, needs provision be 
For keeping the soul's prowess pos- 

sil>le. 
Building new barriers as the old de- 
cay, 
Saving us from evasion of life's 

proof, 



Putting the question ever, ' Does God 

love. 
And will ye hold that truth against 

the world ? ' 
Ye know there needs no second proof 

with good 
Gained for our flesh from any earthly 

source : 
We might go freezing, ages, — give us 

fire. 
Thereafter we judge fire at its full 

worth. 
And guard it safe through every 

chance, ye know ! 
That fable of Prometheus and his 

theft. 
How mortals gained Jove's fiery 

flower, grows old 
(I have been used to hear the pagans 

own) 
And out of mind ; but fire, howe'er 

its birth. 
Here is it, precious to the sophist now 
Who laughs the myth of ^schylus to 

scorn, 
As precious to those satyrs of his 

play, 
Who touched it in gay wonder it the 

thing. 
While were it so with the soul, — 

this gift of truth 
Once grasped, were this our soul's 

gain safe, and sure 
To prosper as the body's gain is 

wont, — 
Why, man's probation would con- 
clude, his earth 
Crumble ; for he both reasons and 

decides. 
Weighs first, then chooses : will he 

give up fire 
B'^or gold or purple once he knows its 

worth ? 
Could he give Christ up were His 

worth as plain ? 
Therefore, I say, to test man, the 

proofs shift. 
Nor may he grasp that fact like other 

fact. 
And straightway in his life acknowl- 
edge it, 
As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire. 
Sigh ye, ' It had been easier once than 

now ? ' 
To give you answer I am left alive ; 
Look at me who was present from the 

first ! 
Ye know what things I saw ; then 

came a test. 



2G2 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



My first, befitting lue who so had 

Seen : 
' Forsake tlie Christ thou sawest trans- 
figured, Hini 
Who trod tlie sea and brought the 

dead to life ? 
What should wring this from thee ? ' 

— ye laugh and ask. 
What wrung it ? Even a torchlight 

and a noise, 
The sudden Roman faces, violent 

hands. 
And fear of what the Jews might do ! 

Just that. 
And it is written, ' I forsook and 

fled : ' 
There was my trial, and it ended 

thus. 
Ay, but my soul had gained its truth, 

could grow : 
Another year or two, — what little 

child, 
What tender woman that had seen no 

least 
Of all my sights, but barely heard 

them told. 
Who did not clasp the cross with a 

light laugh. 
Or wrap the burning robe round, 

thanking God ? 
Well, was truth safe forever, then? 

Not so. 
Already had begun the silent work 
Whereby truth, deadened of its abso- 
lute blaze, 
Might need love's eye to pierce the 

o'erstretched doubt. 
Teachers were busy, whispering ' All 

is true 
As the aged ones report ; but youth 

can reach 
Where age gropes dimly, weak with 

stir and strain. 
And the full doctrine slumbers till to- 
day.' 
Thus, what the Roman's lowered 

spear was found, 
A bar to me who touched and handled 

truth. 
Now proved the glozing of some new 

shrewd tongue. 
This Ebion, this Cerinthus or their 

mates, 
Till imminent was the outcry ' Save 

our Christ ! ' 
Whereon I stated much of the Lord's 

life 
Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it 
work. I 



Such work done, as it will be, what 

comes next ? 
What do I hear say, or conceive men 

say, 
' Was John at all, and did he say he 

saw ? 
Assure us, ere we ask what he might 

see ! ' " 



"Is this indeed a burthen for late 

days, 
And may I help to bear it with you 

all. 
Using my weakness which becomes 

your strength ? 
For if a babe were born inside this 

grot, 
(jrrew to a boy here, heard us praise 

the sun. 
Yet had but yon sole glimmer in 

light's place, — 
One loving him and wishful he should 

learn. 
Would much rejoice himself was 

blinded first 
Month by month here, so made to 

understand 
How eyes, born darkling, apprehend 

amiss : 
I think I could explain to such a 

child 
There was more glow outside than 

gleams he caught, 
Ay, nor need urge ' I saw it, so be- 
lieve ! ' 
It is a heavy burthen you shall bear 
In latter days, new lands, or old 

grown strange. 
Left without me, which must be very 

soon. 
What is the doubt, my brothers? 

Quick with it ! 
I see you stand conversing, each new 

face, 
Either in fields, of yellow summer 

eves. 
On islets yet unnamed amid the sea ; 
Or pace for shelter 'neath a portico 
Out of the crowd in some enormous 

town 
Where now the larks sing in a soli- 
tude ; 
Or muse upon blank heaps of stone 

and sand 
Idly conjectured to be Ephesus : 
And no one asks his fellow any 

more 
• Where is the promise of Hia com- 
ing?' but 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



263 



'Was He revealed in any of His 

lives, 
As Power, as Love, as Influencing 

Soul ? ' 

" Quick, for time presses, tell the 

whole mind out, 
And let us ask and answer and be 

saved ! 
My book speaks on, because it cannot 

pass ; 
One listens quietly, nor scoffs but 

pleads 
' Here is a tale of things done ages 

since : 
What truth was ever told the second 

day? 
Wonders, that would prove doctrine, 

go for naught. 
Remains the doctrine, love ; well, we 

must love, 
And what we love most, power and 

love in one, 
Let us acknowledge on the record 

here. 
Accepting these in Christ : must 

Christ tlieu be ? 
Has He been ? Did not we ourselves 

make Him ? 
Our mind receives but what it holds, 

no more. 
First of the love, then ; we acknowl- 
edge Christ — 
A proof we comijrehend His love, a 

proof 
We had such love already in our- 
selves. 
Knew first what else we should not 

recognize. 
'Tis mere projection from man's in- 
most mind, 
And, what he loves, thus falls re- 
flected back, 
Becomes accounted somewhat out of 

him ; 
He throws it up in air, it drops down 

earth's, 
With shape, name, story added, man's 

old way. 
How prove you Christ came otherwise 

at least ? 
Next try the power : He made and 

rules the world : 
Certes there is a world once made, 

now ruled, 
Unless things have been ever as we 

see. 
Our sires declared a charioteer's 

yoked steeds 



Brought the sun up the east and down 

' the west, 
Which only of itself now rises, sets, 
As if a hand impelled it and a will, — 
Thus they long thought, they who 

had will and hands : 
But the new question's whisper is 

distinct, 
Wherefore must all force needs be 

like ourselves ? 
We have the hands, the will ; what 

made and drives 
The sun is force, is law, is named, not 

known, 
While will and love we do know ; 

marks of these. 
Eye-witnesses attest, so books de- 
clare — 
As that, to punish or reward our race. 
The sun at undue times arose or set 
Or else stood still : what do not men 

affirm? 
But earth requires as urgently reward 
Or punishment to-day as years ago. 
And none expects the sun will inter- 
pose : 
Therefore it was mere passion and 

mistake, 
Or erring zeal for right, which changed 

the truth. 
Go back, far, farther, to the birth of 

things ; 
Ever the will, the intelligence, the 

love, 
Man's ! — which he gives, supposing 

he but finds. 
As late he gave head, body, hands, 

and feet. 
To help these in what forms he called 

his gods. 
First, Jove's brow, Juno's eyes were 

swept away, 
But Jove's wrath, Juno's pride con- 
tinued long ; 
As last, will, power, and love dis 

carded these, 
So law in turn discards power, love, 

and will. 
What proveth God is otherwise al 

least ? 
All else, projection from the mind of 

man ! ' 
Nay, do not give me wine, for I am 

strong. 
But place my gosi^el where I put my 

hands. 

" I say that man was made to grow 
not stop ; 



264 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



That help, he needed once, and needs 
no more, 

Having grown but an inch by, is 
withdrawn : 

For he hath new needs, and new 
helps to these. 

This imports solely, man should 
mount on each 

New height in view ; the help where- 
by he mounts, 

The ladder-rung his foot has left, may 

Since all things suffer change save 

God the Truth. 
Man apprehends Him newly at each 

stage 
Whereat earth's ladder drops, its ser- 
vice done ; 
And nothing shall prove twice Avliat 

once was proved. 
You stick a garden-plot with ordered 

twigs 
To show inside lie germs of herbs 

unborn. 
And check the careless step would 

spoil their birth ; 
But when herbs wave, the guardian 

twigs may go, 
Since should ye doubt of virtues, 

question kinds, 
It is no longer for old twigs ye look, 
"Which proved once underneath lay 

store of seed, 
But to the herb's self, by what light 

ye boast. 
For what fruit's signs are. This 

book's fruit is plain. 
Nor miracles need prove it any more. 
Doth the fruit show ? Then miracles 

bade 'ware 
At first of root and stem, saved both 

till now 
From trampling ox, rough boar, and 

wanton goat. 
What ? Was man made a wheelwork 

to wind up, 
And be discharged, and straight 

wound up anew ? 
No! — grown, his growth lasts; 

taught, he ne'er forgets : 
May learn a thousand things, not 

twice the same. 
This might be pagan teaching : now 
hear mine. 



" I say, that as the babe, you feed a 
while. 

Becomes a boy and fit to feed him- 
self, 



So, minds at first must be spoon-fed 

with truth : 
When they can eat, babe's nurture is 

withdrawn. 
I fed the babe whether it would or 

no : 
I bid the boy or feed himself or starve 
I cried once, ' That ye may believe in 

Christ, 
Behold this blind man shall receive 

his sight ! ' 
I cry now, ' Urgest thou, for I am 

shrnod, 
And smile at stories how John's toord 

could cure — 
Repeat that miracle and take m.y faith ? ' 
1 say, that miracle was duly wrought 
When, save for it, no faith was possi- 
ble. 
Whether a change were wrought i' 

the shows o' the world. 
Whether the change came from our 

minds which see 
Of shows o' the world so much as 

and no more 
Than God wills for His purpose, - 

(what do I 
See now, suppose you, there where 

you see rock 
Round us?) —I know not ; such was 

the effect. 
So faith grew, making void more 

miracles 
Because too much : they would com- 
pel, not help. 
I say, the acknowledgment of God in 

Christ 
Accepted by thy reason, solves for 

thee 
All questions in the earth and out of 

it, 
And has ;50 far advanced thee to be 

wise. 
Wouldst thou unprove this to re- 
prove the proved ? 
In life's mere minute, with power to 

use that proof. 
Leave knowledge and revert to how 

it sprung? 
Thou hast it ; use it and forthwith, or 

die ! 
For I say, this is death and the sole 

death, 
When a man's loss comes to him from 

his gain. 
Darkness from light, from knowledge 

ignorance, 
And lack of love from love made 
manifest : 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



265 



A lamp's death when, replete with 

oil, it chokes ; 
A stomach's when, surcharged with 

food, it starves. 
With ignorance was surety of a cure. 
"When man, appalled at nature, ques- 
tioned first 
' What if there lurk a might behind 

this might ? ' 
He needed satisfaction God could 

give, 
And did give, as ye have the written 

word : 
But when he finds might still redouble 

might. 
Yet asks, ' Since all is might, what 

use of will ? ' 
— Will, the one source of might, — he 

being man 
With a man's will and a man's might, 

to teach 
In little how the two combine in 

large, — 
That man has turned round on him- 
self and stands : 
Which in the course of nature is, to 

die. 

"And when man questioned, 'What 

if there be love 
Behind the will and might, as real as 

they ? ' — 
He needed satisfaction God could 

give, 
And did give, as ye have the written 

word : 
But when, beholding that love every- 
where. 
He reasons, ' Since such love is every- 
where. 
And since ourselves can love and 

would be loved. 
We ourselves make the love, and 

Christ was not,' — 
How shall ye help this man who 

knows himself, 
1'liat he must love and would be loved 

again. 
Yet, owning his own love that proveth 

Christ, 
Rejecteth Christ through very need of 

Him ? 
The lamp o'erswims with oil, the 

stomach flags 
Loaded with nurture, and that man's 

soul dies. 

■' If he rejoin, ' But this was all the 
while 



A trick ; the fault was, first of all, in 

thee. 
Thy story of the places, names and 

dates. 
Where, when, and how the ultimate 

truth had rise, 

— Thy prior truth, at last discovered 

none. 
Whence now the second sulfers detri- 
ment. 
What good of giving knowledge if, 

because 
O' the manner of the gift, its profit 

fail ? 
And why refuse what modicum ot 

help 
Had stopped the after-doubt, impossi- 
ble 
I' the face of truth — truth absolute, 

uniform ? 
Why must I hit of this and miss of 

that. 
Distinguish just as I be weak or 

strong, 
And not ask of thee and have answer 

promj^t. 
Was this once, was it not once? — 

then and now 
And evermore, plain truth from man 

to man. 
Is John's procedure just the heathen 

bard's? 
Put question of his famous play again 
How for the ephemei-als' sake, Jove's 

fire was filched, 
And carried in a cane and brought to 

earth : 
The fact is in the fable, cry the wise, 
Mortals obtained the boon, so much is 

fact, 
Though fire be spirit and produced on 

earth. 
As with the Titan's, so now with thy 

tale : 
Why breed in us perplexity, mistake, 
Nor tell the whole truth in the proper 

words ? ' 

" I answer. Have ye yet to argue out 
The very primal thesis, plainest law, 

— Man is not God but hath God's end 

to serve, 
A master to obey, a course to take. 
Somewhat to cast ofl", somewhat to 

become ? 
Grant this, then man must pass from 

old to new, 
From vain to real, from mistake to 

fact, 



266 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



From what once seemed good, to what 

now proves best : 
How could man have progression 

otherwise ? 
Before the point was mooted ' What 

is God ? ' 
No savage man inquired 'What is 

myself?' 
Much less replied, ' First, last, and 

best of things.' 
Man takes that title now if he bslieves 
Might can exist with neitlier will nor 

love. 
In God's case — what he names now 

Nature's Law — 
While in himself he recognizes love 
No less than might and will : and 

rightlj' takes. 
Since if man prove the sole existent 

thing 
Where these combine, whatever their 

degree. 
However weak the might or will or 

love, 
So they be found there, put in evi- 
dence, — 
He is as surely higher in the scale 
Than anv might with neither love nor 

will. 
As life, apparent in the poorest midge 
(When the faint dust-speck tiits, ye 

guess its wing), 
Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas' 

self — 
Given to the nobler midge for resting- 
place ! 
Thus, man proves best and highest — 

God, in fine. 
And thus the victory leads but to de- 
feat, 
The gain to loss, best rise to the worst 

fall. 
His life becomes impossible, which is 

death. 

" But if, appealing thence, he cower, 

avouch 
He is mere man, and in humility 
Neither may know God nor mistake 

himself ; 
I point to the immediate consequence 
And say, by such confession straight 

he falls 
Into man's place, a thing nor God nor 

beast. 
Made to know that he can know 

and not more : 
Lower than God who knows all and 

can all, 



Higher than beasts which know and 
can so far 

As each beast's limit, perfect to an 
end. 

Nor conscious that they know, nor 
craving more ; 

While man knows partly but con- 
ceives beside. 

Creeps ever on from fancies to the 
fact. 

And in this striving, this converting 
air 

Into a solid he may grasp and use, 

Finds progress, man's distfnctive mark 
alone. 

Not God's, and not the beasts' : God 
is, they are, 

Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. 

Such progress could no more attend 
his soul 

Were all it struggles after found at 
first 

And guesses changed to knowledge 
absolute. 

Than motion wait his body, were all 
else 

Than it the solid earth on every side. 

Where now through space he moves 
from rest to rest. 

Man, therefore, thus conditioned, 
must expect 

He could not, what he knows now, 
know at first ; 

What he considers that he knows to- 
day. 

Come but to-morrow, he will find mis- 
known ; 

Getting increase of knowledge, since 
he learns 

Because he lives, which is to be a 
man. 

Set to instruct himself by his past 
self: 

First, like the brute, obliged by facts 
to le sn, 

Next, as man may, obliged by his 
own mind. 

Bent, habit, nature, knowledge turned 
to law. 

God's gift was that man should con- 
ceive of truth. 

And yearn to gain it, catching at mis- 
take. 

As midway help till he reach fact in- 
deed. 

The statuary ere he mould a shape 

Boasts a like gift, the shape's idea, 
and next 

The aspiration to produce the same 



A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 



26? 



So, taking clay, he calls bis sliajie 

thereout. 
Cries ever 'Now I have the thing I 

see : ' 
Yet all the while goes changing what 

was wrought, 
From falsehood like the truth, to 

truth itself. 
How were it had he cried ' I see no 

face, 
No breast, no feet i' the ineffectual 

clay ? ' 
Rather commend him that he clapped 

his bands, 
And laughed ' It is my shape and 

lives again ! ' 
Enjoyed the falsehood, touched it on 

to truth. 
Until yourselves applaud the flesh 

indeed 
In what is still flesh-imitating clay. 
Right in you, right in him, such way 

be nian's ! 
God only makes the live shape at a 

jet. 
"Will ye renounce this pact of crea- 

tureship ? 
The pattern on the Mount subsists no 

more, 
Seemed a while, then returned to 

nothingness ; 
But copies, Moses strove to make 

thereby. 
Serve still and are replaced as time 

requires : 
By these, make newest vessels, reach 

the type ! 
If ye demur, this judgment on your 

head. 
Never to reach x)\^. ultimate, angels' 

law. 
Indulging every instinct of the soul 
There where law, life, joy, impulse 

are one thing ! 

' Such is the burthen of the latest 

time. 
\ have survived to hear it with my 

ears. 
Answer it with ray lips : does this 

suffice ? 
For if there be a further woe than 

such. 
Wherein my brothers struggling need 

a hand. 
So long as any pulse is left in mine. 
May I V)e absent even longer yet. 
Plucking the blind ones back from 

the abyss, 



Though I should tarry a new hun- 
dreo years ! " 

But he was dead : 'twas about nooQ; 

the day 
Somewhat declinitg : we live buried 

him 
That eve, and then, dividing, went 

five ways. 
And I, disguised, returned to Ephe- 

sus. 

By this, the cave's mouth must be 

filled with sand. 
Valens is lost, I know not of his 

trace ; 
The Bactrian*vas but a wild childish 

man, 
And could not write nor speak, but 

only loved : 
So, lest the memory of this go quite, 
Seeing that I to-morrow fight the 

beasts, 
I tell the same to Phoebas, whom 

believe ! 
For many look again to find that face, 
Beloved John's to whom I minis- 

tered. 
Somewhere in life about the world ; 

they err : 
Either mistaking what was darkly 

spoke 
At ending of his book, as he relates, 
Or misconceiving somewhat of this 

speech 
Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I 

suppose. 
Believe ye will not see him any more 
About the world with his divine re- 
gard ! 
For all was as I say, and now the 

man 
Lies as he lay once, breast to breast 

with God. 



[Cerinthus read and mused ; one 
added this : — 

" If Christ, as thou aftirmest, be of 

men 
Mere man, the first and best but 

nothing more, — 
Account Him, for reward of what He 

was, 
Now and forever, wretchedest of all. 
For see ; Himself conceived of life as 

love, 



268 



FEARS AND SCRUPLES. 



Conceived of love as what must enter 

in, 
Fill up, make one with His each soul 

He loved : 
Thus much for man's joy, all men's 

joy for Him. 
Well, He is gone, thou sayest, to fit 

reward. 
But by this time are many souls set 

free, 
And very many still retained alive : 
Nay, should His coming be delayed 

a while. 
Say, ten years longer (twelve years, 

some compute) 
See if, for every finger of thy hands. 
There be not found, that day the 

world shall end. 
Hundreds of souls, each holding by 

Christ's word 
That He will grow incorporate with 

all. 
With me as Pamphylax, with him as 

John, 
Groom for each bride ! Can a mere 

man do this ? 
Yet Christ saith, this He lived and 

died to do. 
Call Christ, then, the illimitable God, 
Or lost ! " 

But 'twas Cerinthus that is lost.] 



FEARS AND SCRUPLES. 



Here's my case. Of old I used to 
love him. 
This same unseen friend, before I 
knew : 
Dream there was none like him, none 
above him, — 
Wake to hope and trust my dream 
was true. 



Loved I not his letters full of beauty ? 
Not his actions fa.mous far and 
wide? 
Absent, he would know I vowed him 
duty ; 
Present, he would find me at his 
side. 



Pleasant fancy ! for I had but letters, 

Only knew of actions by hearsay : 
He himself was busieti with my bet- 
ters ; 
What of that ? My turn must come 
some day. 



"Some day" proving — no day! 
Here's the puzzle. 
Passed and passed my turn is. 
Why complain ? 
He's so busied ! If I could but muz- 
zle 
People's foolish mouths that give 
me pain ! 



"Letters?" (hear them!) "You a 
judge of writing ? 
Ask the experts ! How they shake 
the head 
O'er these characters, your friend's 
inditing — 
Call them forgery from A to Z I 



"Actions? Where's your certain 
proof" (they bother) 
" He, of all you find so great and 
good, 
He, he only, claims this, that, the 
other 
Action — claimed by men, a multi- 
tude?" 



I can simply wish I might refute 
you. 
Wish my friend would, — by a word, 
a wink, — 
Bid me stop that foolish mouth,— 
you brute you ! 
He keeps absent, — why, I cannot 
think. 



Never mind ! Though foolishness 
may flout me, 
One thing's sure enough : 'tis 
neither frost. 
No, nor fire, shall freeze or bum 
from out me 
Thanks for truth — though false- 
hood, gained — though lost. 



ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES. 



269 



All my days, I'll go the softlier, sad- 
lier, 
For that dream's sake ! How for- 
get the thrill 
Through and through me as I thought 
"Thegladlier 
Lives my friend because I love him 
still ! " 



Ah, but there's a menace some one 
utters ! 
" What and if your friend at home 
play tricks ? 
Peep at hide-and-seek behind the 
shutters ? 
Mean your eyes should pierce 
through solid bricks ? 



" What and if he, frowning, wake 
you, dreamy 
Lay on you the blame that bricks — 
conceal ? 
Say ' At least I saw who did not see 7ne, 
Does see now, and presently shall 
feel?' 



" Why, that makes your friend a 
monster ! " say you : 
Had his house no window ? At 
first nod, 
Would you not have hailed him?" 
Hush, I pray you ! 
What if this friend happen to be — 
God? 



ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES. 

I AM a goddess of the ambrosial 

courts. 
And save by Here, Queen of Pride, 

surpassed 
By none whose temples whiten this 

the world. 
Tlu-ough heaven I roll my lucid moon 

along ; 
I shed in hell o'er my pale jieople 

peace ; 
On earth I, caring for the creatures, 

guard 
Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox- 
bitch sleek. 



And every feathered mother's cal- 
low brood. 

And all that love green haunts and 
loneliness. 

Of men, the chaste adore me, hang- 
ing crowns 

Of poppies red to blackness, bell and 
stem. 

Upon my image at Athenai here ; 

And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends 
above. 

Was dearest to me. He, my bus- 
kined step 

To follow through the wild-wood 
leafy ways. 

And chase the panting stag, or swift 
with darts 

Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leop- 
ai'd low, 

Neglected homage to another god : 

Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight 
smoke 

Of tapers lulled, in jealousy de- 
spatched 

A noisome lust that, as the gadbee 
stings. 

Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for 
himself 

The son of Theseus her great absent 
spouse. 

Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage 

Against the fury of the Queen, she 
judged 

Life insupijortable ; and, jiricked at 
heart 

An Amazonian stranger's race should 
dare 

To scorn her, perished by the murder- 
ous cord : 

Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a 
scroll 

The fame of him her swerving made 
not swerve. 

And Theseiis, read, returning, and 
believed. 

And exiled, in the blindness of his 
wrath. 

The man without a crime who, last as 
first. 

Loyal, divulged not to his sire the 
truth. 

Now Theseus from Poseidon had ob- 
tained 

That of his wishes should be granted 
three. 

And one he imprecated straight — 
" Alive 

May ne'er Hippolutos reach other 
lands ! " 



270 



ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES. 



Poseidon heard, ai ai ! And scarce 
the prince 

Had stepped into the fixed boots of 
the car 

That give the feet a stay against the 
strength 

Of the Henetian horses, and around 

His body flung the rein, and urged 
their speed 

Along the rocks and shingles of the 
shore, 

When from the gaping wave a mon- 
ster tiung 

His obscene body in the coursers 
patli. 

These, mad with terror, as the sea- 
bull sprawled 

Wallowing about their feet, lost care 
of him 

That reared them ; and the master- 
chariot-pole 

Snapping beneath their plunges like a 
reed, 

Hippolutos, whose feet were tram- 
melled fast, 

Was yet dragged forward by the 
circling rein 

Which either hand directed ; nor they 
quenched 

The frenzy of their flight before each 
trace. 

Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woe- 
ful car. 

Each bowlder-stone, sharp stub, and 
spinv shell. 

Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed 
amid the sands 

On that detested beach, was bright 
with blood 

And morsels of his flesh : then fell the 

Head-foremost, crashing in their 

mooned fronts. 
Shivering with sweat, each white eye 

horror-fixed. 
His people, who had witnessed all 

Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos. 
But when his sire, too swoln with 

pride, rejoiced 
(Indomitable as a man foredoomed) 
That vast Poseidon had fulfilled Ins 

prayer, 
I, in a flood of glory visible. 
Stood o'er my dying votary, and, deed 
By deed, revealed, as all took place, 

the truth. 
Then Theseus lay the woefuUest of 

men, 



And worthily ; but ere the death- veils 

hid 
His face, the murdered prince full 

pardon breathed 
To his rash sire. Whereat Athenai 

wails. 

So I, who ne'er forsake my votaries. 
Lest to the cross-way none the honey- 
cake 
Should tender, nor pour out the dog's 

hot life ; 
Lest at my fane the priests disconso- 
late 
Should dress my image with some 

faded poor 
Few crowns, made favors of, nor dare 

oliject 
Such slackness to my worshippers who 

turn 
Elsewhere the trusting heart and 

loaded hand. 
As they had climbed Olumpos to re- 
port 
Of Artemis and nowhere found her 

throne — 
I interposed : and, this eventful 

night — 
(While round the funeral pyre the 

populace 
Stood with fierce light on their black 

robes which bound 
Each sobbing head, while yet their 

hair they clipped 
O'er the dead body of their withered 

prince. 
And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated 
On the cold hearth, his brow cold as 

the slab 
'Twas bruised on, groaned away the 

heavy grief — 
As the pyre fell, and down the cross 

logs crashed 
Sending a crowd of sparkles through 

tiie night. 
And the gay fire, elate with mastery. 
Towered like a serpent o'er the clotted 

jars 
0| wine, dissolving oils and frankm- 

And splendid gums like gold), — my 
potency 

Conveyed tlie perished man to my re- 
treat 

In the thrice-venerable forest here. 

And this white-bearded sage who 
squeezes now 

The berried plant, is Phoibos' son of 
fame, 



PHEIDIPPIDES 



271 



Asclepios, wljoiii my radiant brother 

taught 
The doctrine of each herb and flower 

and root, 
To know their seeret'st virtue and 

express 
Tlie saving soul of all : who so has 

soothed 
"With lavers the torn brow and mur- 
dered cheeks, 
Composed the hair and brought its 

gloss again. 
And called the red bloom to the pale 

skin back, 
And laid the strips and jagged ends 

of flesh 
Even once more, and slacked the 

sinew's knot 
Of every tortured limb — that now he 

lies 



As if mere sleep possessed him under. 

neath 
These interwoven oaks and pines. 

Oh cheer, 
Divine presenter of the healing rod, 
Thy snake, with ardent throat and 

lulling eye, 
Twines his lithe spires around ! I 

say, much cheer ! 
Proceed thou with thy wisest pharma^ 

cies ! 
And ye, white crowd of woodlandi 

sister-nymphs, 
Ply, as the sage directs, these buds 

and leaves 
That strew the turf around the twain J 

While I 
Await, in fitting silence, the event. 



PHEIDIPPIDES. 



First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock I 
Gods of my birthplace, demons and heroes, honor to all ! 
Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in praise 
— Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the segis and spear ! 
Also, ye of the Ijow and the buskin, praised be your peer, 
Now, henceforth, and forever, — O latest to whom I upraise 
Hand and heart and voice ! For Athens, leave pasture and flock I 
Present to help, potent to save, Pan — patron I call ! 

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return ! 

See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks ! 

Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you, 

" Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid ! 

Persia has come, we are here, where is She ? " Your command I obeyed, 

Ran and raced : like stubble, some field which a fire runs through. 

Was the space between city and city : two days, two nights did I burn 

Over tlie hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks. 

Into their midst I broke : breath served but for " Persia has come ! 

Persia bids Atliens iiroffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth ; 

Razed to the ground is Eretria — but Athens, shall Athens sink. 

Drop into dust and die — the flower of Hellas utterly die. 

Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by ? 

Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction'; 

brink ? 
How, — when ? No care for my limbs ! — there's lightning in all and souie- 
Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth ! " 

O my Athens — Sparta love thee ? Did Sparta respond ? 
Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust, 



272 PHEIDIPPIDES. 

Malice, — each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate ! 

Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood 

Qi:ivering, —the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood : 

" Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate? 

Thunder, thou Zeus ! Athene, are Spartans a quarry beyond 

Swing of thy spear ? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them ' Ye must ' 1 •' 

No bolt launched from Olumpos ! Lo, their answer at last ! 
" Has Persia come, — does Athens ask aid, — may Sparta befriend ? 
Nowise precipitate judgment — too weighty the issue at stake ! 
Count we no time lost time which lags through respect to the God»! 
Ponder that precept of old, ' No warfare, whatever the odds 
In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take 
Full-circle her state in the sky ! ' Already she rounds to it fast : 
Athens must wait, patient as we — who judgment suspend." 

Athens, — except for that sparkle, — thy name, I had mouldered to ashS 
That sent a blaze through my blood ; off, off and away was I back, 
— Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile ! 
Yet " O Gods of my land ! " I cried, as each hillock and plain, 
Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again, 
" Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid you erewhile? 
Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation ! Too rash 
Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack ! 

" Oak and olive and bay, — I bid you cease to inwreathe 
Brows made bold by your leaf ! Fade at the Persian's foot, 
You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave I 
Rather I hail thee, Parnes, — trust to thy wild waste tract ! 
Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain ! What matter if slacked 
My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave 
No deity deigns to drape with verdure, — at least I can breathe, 
Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute ! " 

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge ; 

&ully and gap, I clambered and cleared till, sudden, bar 

Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way. 

Right ! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across : 

" Where I could enter, there I depart by ! Night in the fosse? 

Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise ! No bridge 

Better ! " — when — ha ! what was it I came on, of wonders that are ? 

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he — raajestical Pan f 

Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof : 

AH the great God was good in the eyes grave-kindly — the curl 

Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe. 

As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw. 

''' Halt, Pheidippides ! " — halt I did, my brain of a whirl : 

" Hither to me ! Why pale in my presence ? " he gracious began : 

" How is it, — Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof ? 

" Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast ! 
Wherefore ? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old ? 
Ay, and still, and forever her friend ! Put Pan to the test ! 
Go, bid Athens take heart, laiigh Persia to scorn, have faith 
In the temples and tombs ! Go, say to Athens, ' The Goat-God saith : 
When Persia — so much as strews not the soil — is cast in the sea, 
Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least. 
Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made cue cause with the free and the bold I ■ 



PHEIDIPPIDES. 



" Say Pan saith : ' Let this, foreshowing the place, he the jiledge ! ' " 
(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear 
— Fennel, whatever it bode — I grasped it a-treinble with dew.) 
" While, as for thee ..." But enough ! He was gone. If I ran hither- 
to— 
Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew. 
Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge I 
Pan for Athens, Pan for me ! myself have a guerdon rare 1 



Then spoke Miltiades. " And thee, best runner of Greece, 

Whose limbs did duty indeed, — what gift is jironiised thyself? 

Tell it us straightway, — Athens the mother demands of her son ! " 

Rosily blushed the youth : he paused : but, lifting at length 

His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength 

Into the utterance — " Pan spoke thus : ' For what thou hast done 

Count on a worthj' reward ! Henceforth be allowed thee release 

From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in i^elf ! ' 

" I am bold to believe. Pan means reward the most to my mind ! 
Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may grow, — 
Pound — Pan helping us — Persia to dust, and, under the deep. 
Whelm her away forever ; and then, —no Athens to save, — 
Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave, — 
Hie to my house and home : and, when my children shall creep 
Close to my knees, — recount how the God was awful yet kind, 
Promised their sire reward to the full — rewarding bim — so ! " 



Unforeseeing one ! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day : 
So, when Persia was dust, all cried " To Akropolis ! 
Run, Pheidippides, one race more ! the meed is thy due ! 
' Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout ! " He flung down his shield, 
Ran like fire once more : and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field 
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through. 
Till in he broke : " Rejoice, we conquer ! " Like wine through clay, 
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died — the bliss ! 

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute 

Is still " Rejoice ! " — his word which brought rejoicing indeed. 

So is Pheidippides happy forever, — the noble strongman 

Who could race like a God, bear the face of a God, whom a God loved s. 

well 
He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell 
Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began, 
So to end gloriously — once to shout, thereafter be unite : 
" Athens is saved ! " — Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed. 



274 



THE PATRIOT. 



THE PATRIOT. 

AN OLD STORY. 



It was roses, roses, all the way. 
With myrtle mixed in my jjath like 
mad : 
The house-roofs seemed to heave and 
sway, 
The church-spires flamed, such flags 
they had, 
A year ago on this very day. 



The air broke into a mist with bells. 
The old walls rocked with the crowd 
and cries. 
Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise 
repels — 
But give me your sun from yonder 
skies ! " 
They had answered " And afterward, 
what else?" 



Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun 
To give it my loving friends to 
keep ! 
Naught man could do, have I left un- 
done : 
And you see ray harvest, what I 
reap 
This very day, now a year is run. 



There's nobody on the house-tops 

now — 

Just a palsied few at the windows 

set ; 

For the best of the sight is, all allow, 

At the Shambles' Gate — or, better 

yet. 

By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 



I go in the rain, and, more than 

needs, 

A rope cuts both my wrists behind ; 

And I think, by the feel, my forehead 

bleeds, 

For they fling, whoever has a mind. 

Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. 



Thus I entered, and thus I go ! 
In triumphs, people have dropped 
down dead. 
" Paid by the world, what dost thou 
owe 
Me?" — God might question; now 
instead, 
'Tis God shall repay : I am safer so. 



POPULARITY. 



Stand still, true poet that you are ! 
I know you ; let me try and draw 
you. 
Some night you'll fail us : when afar 
You rise, remember one man saw 
you. 
Knew you, and named a star ! 



My star, God's glow-worm ! "Why 
extend 
That loving hand of His which leads 

you. 

Yet locks you safe from end to end 
Of this dark world, unless He needs 
you. 
Just saves your light to spend ? 



His clinched hand shall unclose at 
last, 

I know, and let out all the beauty : 
My poet liolds the future fast. 

Accepts the coming ages' duty, 
Their present for this past. 



That day, the earth's feast-master's 
brow 
Shall clear, to God the chalice rais- 
ing ; 
" Others give best at first, but Thou 

Forever set'st our table praising, 
Keep'st the good wine till now I " 



Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand, 
With few or none to watch and 
wondm- : 



PISGAH-aiGHTS. 



275 



I'll say — a tisher, on tlie sand 
By Tyre the old, with ocean-plun- 
der, 
A netful, brought to land. 



Who has not heard how Tyrian shells 
Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes 

Whereof one drop worked miracles. 
And colored like Astarte's eyes 

Raw silk the merchant sells ? 



And each by-stander of them all 

Could criticise, and quote tradition 
How depths of blue sublimed some 
pall 
— To get which, pricked a king's 
ambition ; 
Worth sceptre, crown, and ball. 



Yet there's the dye, in that rough 
mesh, 
The sea has only just o'er-whis- 
pered ! 
Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping 
fresh, 
As if they still the water's lisp 
heard 
Through foam the rock- weeds thresh. 



Enough to furnish Solomon 
Such hangings for his cedar-house. 

That, when gold-robed he took the 
throne 
In that abyss of blue, the Spouse 

Might swear his presence shone 



Most like the centre-spike of gold 
Which burns deep in the blue-bell's 
womb 

What time, with ardors manifold, 
The bee goes singing to her groom. 

Drunken and overbold. 

XI. 

Mere conchs ! not fit for warp or 
woof! 
Till cunning come to pound and 
squeeze 
And clarify, — refine to proof 

The liquor filtered by degrees. 
While the world stands aloof. 



And there's the extract, flasked and 
fine. 
And priced and salable at last ! 
And Hobhs,Nobbs, Stokes, and Nokes 
combine 
To paint the future from the past, 
Put blue into their line. 



Hobbs hints blue, — straight he turtle 
eats : 
Nobbs prints blue, — claret crowns 
his cup : 
Nokes outdares Stokes in azure 
feats, — 
Both gorge. Who fished the murex 
up? 
What porridge had John Keats ? 



PISGAH-SIGHTS. 1. 



Over the ball of it. 

Peering and prying, 
How I see all of it. 

Life there, outlying ! 
Roughness and smoothness, 

Shine and defilement, 
Grace and uncouthness ; 

One reconcilement. 



Orbed as appointed. 

Sister with brother 
Joins, ne'er disjointed 

One from the other. 
All's lend-and-borrow ; 

Good, see, wants evil, 
Joy demands sorrow, 

Angel weds devil ! 



III. 
" Which things must — ivhy be?' 

Vain our endeavor ! 
So shall things aye be 

As they were ever. 
" Such things should so be ! " 

Sage our desistence ! 
Rough-smooth let globe be, 

Mixed — man's existence ! 



276 



PISGAII-SJGHTS. 



IV. 


V. 


Man — wise and foolish, 


Praising, reviling, 


Lover and scorner, 


Worst head and best head, 


Docile and mulish — 


Past me defiling, 


Keep each his corner ! 


Never arrested, 


Honey yet gall of it ! 


Wanters, abounders. 


There's the life lying, 


March, in gay mixture, 


And I see all of it, 


Men, my surrounders ! 


Only, I'm dying ! 


I am the fixture. 
vr. 




So shall I fear thee, 




Mightiness yonder ! 


PISGAH-SIGHTS. 2. 


Mock-sun — more near thee. 




What is to wonder ? 


I. 


So shall I love thee, 


Could I but live again, 


Down in the dark, — lest 
Glowworm I prove thee, 


Twice my life over, 
Would I once strive again ? 


Star that now sparkiest ! 


Would not I cover 




Quietly all of it — 




Greed and ambition — 




So, from the pall of it, 




Pass to fruition ? 


PISGAH-SIGHTS. 3. 


II. 
" Soft ! " I'd say, " Soul mine ! 


I. 
Good, to forgive ; 


Threescore and ten years, 


Best, to forget ! 


Let the blind mole mine 


Living, we fret ; 


Digging out deniers ! 


Dying, we live. 


Let the dazed hawk soar. 


Fretless and free, 


Claim the sun's rights too ! 


Soul, clap thy pinion I 


Turf 'tis thy walk's o'er. 


Earth have dominion. 


Foliage thy flight's to." 


Body, o'er thee ! 


III. 


II. 


Only a learner, 


Wander at will, 


Quick one or slow one. 


Day after day, — 


Just adiscerner, 


Wander away, 


I would teach no one. 


Wandering still — 


I am earth's native : 


Soul that canst soar ! 


No re-arranging it ! 


Body may slumber : 


/ be creative. 


Body shall cumber 


Chopping and changing it ? 


Soul-flight no more. 


IV. 


III. 


March, men, my fellows ! 


Waft of soul's wing 1 


Those who, above me 


What lies above ? 


(Distance so mellows). 


Sunshine and Love, 


Fancy you love me : 


Skyblue and Spring ! 


Those who, below me 


Body hides — where ? 


(Distance makes great so). 


Ferns of all feather. 


Free to forego me, 


Mosses and heather. 


Fancy you hate so 1 


Yours be the care ! 



AT THE "mermaid. 



277 



AT THE "MERMAID." 

Tbe figure that thou here seest . . . Tut! 
Was it for gentle Shakspeare put ? 

B. JoNSON. {Adapted.) 



I — " Next Poet? " No, my hearties, 

I nor am nor fain would be ! 
Choose your chiefs and pick your 
parties, 

Not one soul revolt to me ! 
I, forsooth, sow song-sedition ? 

I, a schism in verse provoke? 
I, blown up by bard's ambition, 

Burst — your bubble-kiug ? You 
joke. 

II. 

Come, be grave ! The sherris man- 
tling 
Still about each mouth, mayhap. 
Breeds you insight — just a scant- 
ling- 
Brings me truth out — just a scrap. 
Look and tell me ! Written, spoken. 
Here's my life-long work : and 
where 
— "Where's your warrant or my token 
I'm the dead king's son and heir ? 



Here's my work : does work discover 

What was rest from work — my 
life? 
Did I live man's hater, lover ? 

Leave the world at peace, at strife ? 
Call earth ugliness or beauty ? 

See things there in large or small ? 
Use to pay its Lord my duty ? 

Use to own a lord at all ? 



Blank of such a record, truly. 

Here's the work I hand, this scroll. 
Yours to take or leave ; as duly. 

Mine remains the unproffered soitl. 
So mueli, no whit more, my debtors — 

How should one like me lay claim 
To that largess elders, betters 

Sell you cheap their souls for — 
fame ? 



Which of you did I enable 
Once to sli]i inside my breast 

There to catalogue and label 
What I like least, what love best, 



Hope and fear, believe and doubt of, 
Seek and shun, respect — deride? 

Who has right to make a rout of 
Rarities he found inside ? 



Rarities or, as he'd rather. 

Rubbish such as stocks his own : 
Need and greed (oh strange !) the 
Father 
Fashioned not for him alone ! 
Whence — the comfort set a-strutting. 
Whence — the outcry "Haste, be- 
hold ! 
Bard's breast open wide, past shut- 
ting, 
Shows what brass we took for 
gold ! " 



Friends, I doubt not he'd display you 

Brass — myself call oreichalch, — 
Furnish much amusement ; pray you 

Therefore, be content I balk 
Him and you, and bar my portal ! 

Here's my work outside ; opine 
What's inside me mean and mortal ! 

Take your pleasure, leave me mine ! 



Which is — not to buy your laurel 

As last king did, notliing loth. 
Tale adorned and pointed moral 

Gained him praise and pity both. 
Out rushed sighs and groans by 
dozens, 

Forth l)y scores oaths, curses flew : 
Proving you were cater-cousins. 

Kith and kindred, king and you ! 



Whereas do 1 ne'er so little 

(Thanks to sherris) leave ajar 
Bosom's gate — no jot nor tittle 

Grow we nearer than we are. 
Sinning, sorrowing, despairing, 

Body-ruined, spirit-wrecked, — 
Should I give my woes an-airing, — 

Where's one plague that claims 
respect ? 



Have you found your life distasteful ? 

My life did and does smack sweet. 
Was yoiu- youth of pleasure waste- 
ful ? 

Mine I saved and hold complete. 



278 



HOUSE. 



Do your joys with age diminish ? 

When mine fail nie, I'll complain. 
Must in death your daylight finish ? 

My sun sets to rise again. 



What, like you, he proved — your 
Pilgrim — 
This our world a wilderness, 
Earth still gray and heaven still 
grim, 
Not a hand there his might press, 
Not a heart his own might throb to. 
Men all rogues and women — say, 
Dolls which boys' heads duck and bob 
to, 
Grown folk drop or throw away ? 



My experience being other, 

How should I contribute verse 
Worthy of your king and brother ? 

Balaam-like I bless, not curse. 
I find earth not gray but rosy, 

Heaven not grim but fair of hue. 
Do I stoop ? I pluck a posy. 

Do I stand and stare ? All's blue. 



Doubtless I am pushed and shoved 
by 

Rogues and fools enough : the more 
Good luck mine, I love, am loved by 

Some few honest to the core. 
Scan the near high, scout the far low ! 

" But the low come close : " what 
then ? 
Simpletons ? My match is Marlowe ; 

Sciolists ? My mate is Ben. 



Womankind — " the eat-like nature. 

False and fickle, vain and weak " — 
Scarcely this sad nomenclature 

Suits my tongue, if I must speak. 
Does the sex invite, rejudse so, 

Tempt, betray, by tits and starts? 
So becalm but to convulse so. 

Decking heads and breaking hearts ? 



Well may you blaspheme at fortune ! 

I " threw Venus " (Ben, expound ! ) 
Never did I need importune 

Her, of all the Olympian round. 



Blessings on my benefactress ! 

Cursings suit — for aught I know — 
Those who twitched her by the back 
tress. 
Tugged and thought to turn her — 
so I 



Therefore, since no leg to stand on 

Thus I'm left with, — joy or grief 
Be the is.sue, — I abandon 

Hope or care you name me Chief 1 
Chief and king and Lord's anointed, 

I ? — who never once have wished 
Death before the day appointed : 

Lived and liked, not iioohed and 
pished ! 

XVII. 

" Ah, but so I shall not enter, 

Scroll in hand, the common heart — 
Stopped at surface : since at centre 

Song should reach Welt-schmerz, 
world-smart ! " 
" Enter in the heart ? " Its shelly 

Cuirass guard mine, fore and aft I 
Such song " enters in the belly 

And is cast out in the draught." 



XVIII. 

Back then to our sherris-brewage ! 

" Kingship " quotha ? I shall wait — 
Waive the present time : some new 
age . . . 
But let fools anticipate ! 
Meanwhile greet me — " friend, good 
fellow, 
Gentle Will," my merry men ! 
As for making Envy yellow 
With " Next Poet " — (Manners, 
Ben!) 



HOUSE. 



Shall I sonnet-sing you about m;\ 
self? 
Do I live in a house vou would like 
to see ? 
Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf ? 
" Unlock my heart with a sonnet- 
key?" 



SHOP. 



279 



Invite the world, as my betters have 
(lone ? 
" Take notice : this building re- 
ffiains on view, 
Its suites of I'eception every one. 
Its private apartment and bedroom 
too ; 



■' For a ticket, apply to the Publish- 
er." 
No : thanking the public, I must 
decline. 
A peep through my window, if folks 
prefer ; 
But, please you, no foot over thresh- 
old of mine ! 



I have mixed with a crowd and heard 
free talk 
In a foreign land where an earth- 
quake chanced 
And a house stood gaping, naught to 
balk 
Man's eye wherever he gazed or 
glanced. 



The whole of the frontage shaven 
sheer. 
The inside gaped : exposed to day. 
Eight and wrong and common and 
queer, 
Bare, as the palm of your hand, it 
lay. 

VI. 

The owner ? Oh, he had been crushed, 
no doubt ! 
"Odd tables and chairs for a man 
of wealth ! 
What a parcel of musty old books 
about ! 
He smoked, — no wonder he lost 
his health ! 

VII. 

" I doubt if he bathed before he 
dressed. 
A brazier? — the pagan, he burned 
perfumes ! 
You see it is proved, what the neigh- 
bors guessed : 
His wife and himself had separate 
rooms." 



Friends, the goodman of the house 
at least 
Kept house to himself till an earth- 
quake came : 
'Tis the fall of Its frontage permits 
you feast 
On the inside arrangement you 
praise or blame. 

IX. 

Outside should suffice for evidence : 
And whoso desires to penetrate 

Deeper, must dive by the siMrit- 
sense — 
No optics like yours, at any rate I 

X. 

" Hoity toity ! A street to explore. 
Your house the exception ! ' With 
this same key 
Shakspeare unlocked his heart,' once 
more ! " 
Did Shakspeare ? If so, the less 
Shakspeare he ! 



SHOP. 



So, friend, your shop was all your 
house ! 
Its front, astonishing the street. 

Invited view from man and mouse 
To what diversity of treat 
Behind its glass — the single sheet ! 



What gimcracks, genuine Japanese •. 

Gape-jaw and goggle-eye, the frog ; 

Dragons, owls, monkeys, beetles, 

geese ; 

Some crush-nosed human-hearteii 

dog : 
Queer names, too, such a catalogue ! 



I thought "And he who owns the 
wealth 
"Which blocks the window's vasti- 
tude, 
— Ah, could I peep at hiui by stealth 
Behind his ware, pass shop, intrude 
On house itself, what scenes were 
viewed ! 



280 



STIOP. 



" If wide and showy tlius the shop, 
M'hat must the liabitation prove ? 

The true house with no name a-top — 
The mansion, distant one remove. 
Once get him off his traffic-groove ! 



' Pictures he likes, or books perhaps ; 
And as for buying most and best, 

Commend me to these city cliaps ! 
Or else he's social, takes his rest 
On Sundays, with a Lord for guest. 



" Some suburb-palace, parked about 
And gated grandly, built last year : 

The four-mile walk to keep off gout ; 
Or big seat sold by bankrupt peer : 
But then he takes the rail, that's 
clear. 



" Or, stop ! I wager, taste selects 
Some out o' the way, some all- 
unknown 
Retreat : the neighborhood suspects 
Little that he who rambles lone 
Makes Rothschild tremble on his 
throne ! " 



Nowise ! Nor Mayfair residence 
Fit to receive and entertain, — 

Nor Hampstead villa's kind defence 
From noise and crowd, from dust 

and drain, — 
Nor country-box was soul's domain ! 



Nowise ! At back of all that spread 

Of merchandise, woe's me, I find 
A hole i' the wall where, heels by 
head. 
The owner couched, his ware be- 
hind, 
— In cupboard suited to his mind. 



For, why ? He saw no use of life 
But, wliilo he drove a roaring trade, 

To chuckle " Customers are rife ! " 
To chafe " So much hard cash out- 
laid 
5fet zero in my profits made 1 



XI. 

"This novelty costs pains, but — 
takes ? 
Cumbers my counter ! Stock no 
more ! 
This article, no such great shakes, 
Fizzes like wild fire ? Underscore 
The cheap thing — thousands to the 
fore ! " 



'Twas lodging best to live most nigh 
(Cramp, comnlike as crib might be) 

Receipt of Custom ; ear and eye 
Wanted no outwork! : "Hear and 

see 
The bustle in the shoji ! " quoth he. 



My fancy of a merchant-prince 
Was different. Through his wares 
we groped 
Our darkling way to — not to mince 
The matter — no black den where 

moped 
The master if we interloped I 



Shop was shop only : household- 
stuff ? 
What did he want with comforts 
there ? 
" Walls, ceiling, floor, stay blank and 
rough. 
So goods on sale show rich and rare ! 
' ;S'e^^ and send home,' be shop's 
affair ! " 



What might he deal in ? Gems, sup- 
pose ! 
Since somehow business must be 
done 
At cost of trouble, — see, he throws 
You choice of jewels, every one 
Good, better, best, star, rnoon, and 
sun I 



xvr. 
Which lies within your power of 
purse ? 
This ruby that would tip aright 
Solomon's sceptre? Oh, your nurse 
Wants simply coral, the delight 
Of teething baby, — stuff to bite I 



A TALE. 



281 



XVII. 

Howe'er your choice fell, straight you 

took 

Your purchase, prompt your money 

rang 

On counter, — scarce the man forsook 

His study of the "Times," jnst 

swang 
Till-ward liis hand that stopped the 
clang, — 

xvin. 
Then off made buyer with a prize, 
Then seller to his "Times" re- 
turned, 
And so did day wear, wear, till eyes 
Brightened apace, for rest was 

earned : 
He locked door long ere candle 
burned. 



And whither went he? Ask him- 
self. 
Not nie ! To change of scene, I 
think. 
Once sold the ware and pursed the 
pelf. 
Chaffer was scarce his meat and 

drink, 
Nor all his music — money-chink. 



Because a man has shop to mind 
In time and place, since flesh must 
live, 
Needs spirit lack all life behind, 
All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive, 
All loves except what trade can 
give ? 

XXI. 

I want to know a butcher paints, 
A baker rhymes for his pursuit, 

C iiidlestick-maker much acquaints 
His soul with song, or, haply mute. 
Blows out his brains upon the flute ! 



But — shop each day and all day long ! 

Friend, your good angel slept, your 
star 
Suffered eclipse, fate did you wrong ! 

From where these sorts of treas- 



ures are, 
There should our hearts be - 
how far ! 



-Christ, 



A TALE. 



What a pretty tale you told me 

Once upon a time 
— Said you found it somewhere (scold 
me !) 
Was it prose or was it rhyme, 
Greek or Latin ? Greek, you said, 
While your shoulder propped my 
head. 



Anyhow there's no forgetting 

This much if no more. 
That a poet (pray, no petting !) 

Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 
Went where suchlike used to go, 
Singing for a prize, you know. 

III. 
Well, he had to sing, nor merelj" 

Sing but play the lyre ; 
Playing was important clearly 

Quite as singing : I desire. 
Sir, you keep the fact in mind 
For a purpose that's behind. 



There stood he, while deep attention 

Held the judges round, 
— Judges able, I should mention, 

To detect the slightest sound 
Sung or played amiss : such ears 
Had old judges, it appears ! 



V. 

None the less he sang out boldly, 

Played in time and tune, 
Till the judges, weighing coldly 

Each note's worth, seemed, late or 
soon. 
Sure to smile " In vain one tries 
Picking faults out : take the prize ! " 



When, a mischief ! Were they seveii 

Strings the lyre possessed ? 
Oh, and afterwards eleven. 
Thank you ! Well, sir, — who had 
guessed 
Such ill luck in store ? — it happed 
One of tliose same seven strings 
snapped. 



282 



A TALE. 



All was lost, then ! No ! a cricket 
(What " cicada" ? Pooh !) 

— Some mad thing that left its thicket 
For mere love of music — flew 

With its little heart on fire, 

Lighted on the crippled lyre. 



So that when (Ah joy !) our singer 

For his truant string 
Feels with disconcerted finger, 

What does cricket else hut fling 
Fiery heart forth, sound the note 
Wanted by the throbbing throat ? 



Ay and, ever to the ending. 
Cricket chirps at need,* 

Executes the hand's intending. 
Promptly, perfectly, — indeed 

Saves tlie singer from defeat 

With her chirrup low and sweet. 



Till, at ending, all the judges 

Cry with one assent 
" Take the prize — a prize who grudges 

Such a voice and instrument ? 
Why, we took your lyre for harp, 
So it shrilled us forth F sharp ! " 



Did the conqueror spurn the creature. 

Once its service done ? 
That's no such uncommon feature 

In the case when Music's son 
Finds his Lotte's power too spent 
For aiding soul-development. 



No ! This other, on returning 
Homeward, prize in hand, 

Satisfied his bosom's yearning : 
(Sir, I hope you understand !) 

— Said " Some record there must be 

Of this cricket's help to me ! " 



So, he made himself a statue : 
Marble stood, life-size ; 



On the lyre, he pointed at you, 

Perched liis partner in the prize ; 
Never more apart you found 
Her, he throned, from him, she 
crowned. 



That's the tale : its application ? 

Somebody I know 
Hopes one day for reputation 

Through liis poetry that's —Oh, 
All so learned and so Avise, 
And deserving of a prize ! 



If he gains one, will some ticket, 

When his statue's built. 
Tell the gazer " 'Twas a cricket 

Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt 
Sweet and low, when strength 

usurped 
Softness' place i' the scale, she 
chirped ? 



" For as victory was nighest. 
While I sang and played, — 

With my lyre at lowest, hijj;liest. 
Right alike, — one string that made 

' Love ' sound soft was snapt in twain, 

Never to be heard again, — 



XVII. 

" Had not a kind cricket fluttered, 

Perched upon the place 
Vacant left, and duly uttered 

'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the 
bass 
Asked the treble to atone 
For its somewhat sombre drone." 



But you don't know music ! Where. 

fore 
, Keep on casting pearls 
To a — poet V All I care for 
Is — i;o tell him that a girl's 
" Love " comes aptly in when grufl 
Grows his singing. (There, enough !) 



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